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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.QJ^.Stypyriglit No*. 
SheIL.Ml3 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BOTANY 

The Story of 
Plant Life 



BY JULIA Mac NAIR WRIGHT 

Author of " Nature Readers, Seaside and Wayside," 
" Astronomy," etc. 



ILLUSTRATED 



' Flower in the crannied wall ! 

I pluck you out of the crannies ; 

I hold you here, root and all in my hand, 

Little flower — if L could but understand 

What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

I should know what God and man is." 

— Tennyson. 



Philadelphia 

The Penn Publishing Company 

1898 






Copyright 1898 by The Penn Publishing Company 




JWO C0P|£o RECEIVED. 



7898. 



CONTENTS 



I. The Story of the Eoot (January) . . 

II. The Story of the Stem (February) 

III. The Hope of Years to Come (March) 

IV. When the Woods are Leaf-Green (April 
V. The Beauty of the Flower (May) . . 

VI. Solomon's Rivals (June) 

VII. Plant Partnerships (July) 

VIII. Plant-Food and Motion (August) . . 

IX. The Pilgrims of the Year (September) 

X. Bringing Forth Fruit (October) . . . 

XI. Tin: Sleep of the Plants (November) 

XII. The Reign of the Immortals (December) 



PAGE 

5 

25 

43 

60 

81 

99 

115 

132 

US 

170 

187 

198 



BOTANY 

CHAPTER I 

THE STORY OF THE ROOT 

January 

" Never quite shall disappear 
The glory of the circling year." 

THE EXTENT OF PLANT LIFE 

Plant life extends over almost the entire surface of 
the globe. If, as is highly probable, the waters of 
the Polar seas, under the perpetual ice-cap, have 
their algae, or sea-weeds, then the only places really 
destitute of vegetation are the crests of the highest 
mountains, the highest regions of glaciers and ever- 
enduring snows. 

The seas are full of sea-weeds, from the most mi- 
nute to the largest known plants. Under the snow 
of the Arctic region are beds of lichens, while upon 



6 aSotartB 

the surface are the tiny algae, known as " crimson 
snow." 

The faces of great rocks bear films of lichens, 
which, when observed under the microscope, appear 
as groves and forests, wherein play minute animals, 
invisible to unaided eyes. The long-dead logs and 
rails in fences are clothed with fairy gardens, knobs 
of gold, cups of scarlet, frost-work of gray, white, 
black, green. 

Parasites and epiphytes hang high upon the 
branches of the trees ; gray-green mistletoe, flaming 
orchids ; while about the grasses and little shrubs 
twines the dodder, also a parasite ; and from the 
spreading roots of pines lift the wax-white beech- 
drops. 

The waters of ponds are covered with what people 
loosely call " green scum from stagnation," but which 
is nothing more nor less than a floating bed of 
strange plants. Water-lilies and other aquatic 
growths spring from the mud-beds of ponds, and 
along the margins of rivers. The stones underwater 
afford root-hold for plants. 

. Plant life invades the store-closet and pantry ; it 
takes hold upon loaves of bread, the tops of jars 
of preserves, pickles, and jellies — "mold" we 
call it. If we examine it carefully, this " mold " 
turns out to be a crowded collection of little plants, 



Zbe Storg of tbe IRoot 7 

beautifully shaped and highly colored. Were it not 
for this invasion of our domestic privacy by plant 
life, we should have no yeast and no vinegar. 

Deep down into the wells climb the lichens and 
algae ; the marl-pit and the lime-kiln are no sooner 
abandoned by men than nature prepares to send her 
plant-hosts to take possession. If there is a crack 
in a rock, a seed falls into it, germinates, rives the 
rock ; lo ! life triumphs over death, and action over 
inaction. If the greatest cities in the world were 
now abandoned of men, within fifty years the houses 
would be draped with lichens, vines, fungi; the 
streets would be a tangle of weeds, creepers, briars ; 
great forest trees would rise on every side ; the bat- 
talions of the birds, the cohorts of the winds would 
bring the seeds and superintend the reconverting of 
the abodes of humanity to tangled wilderness. 

Vegetable life preceded man upon the earth, and 
keeps equal pace with him in his progress upon it. 
Wherever man abides the plants accompany him. We 
think of the frigid zones as denuded of vegetation ; 
even there, in the brief summers, poppies bloom 
and grasses wave close to the retreating snow-line. 
So the Alpine eidelweiss and gentian climb the 
heights and nod under the edges of the glaciers. 

The existence of plant life is a condition upon 
which human existence depends. The presence <>t' 



8 ^Sotang 

plants is as needful to the life of man as air, light, 
and water. 

THE UTILITY OF PLAXT LIFE 

Why is the plant needful to the life of animals? 
For food : Plant life must have preceded animal 
life, because the original food of the animal is the 
plant. Plants are the great food-making shops. 
Only plants can take mineral substances from soil or 
water and convert them into food stuff. Animals 
cannot feed upon minerals ; the minerals must be 
converted into vegetable material before animals can 
assimilate them. The first food of the first animal, 
whatever that animal was — some sea-creature of 
simple form, probably — was some small and simple 
sea-weed, which had existed before the animal. 

The plant can live without the animal ; the ani- 
mal cannot live without the plant. The plant can 
take its food directly from soil, air, and water; the 
animal must have the plant for its middleman in 
its dealings with nature. There are, it is true, car- 
nivorous animals, creatures feeding upon flesh, either 
living, dead or decayed. This flesh, however, is of 
creatures that are vegetable eaters. The lion devours 
the antelope, kid or giraffe. These are eaters of 
herbs. We humans drink milk and eat meat, as 
well as vegetable substances, but our animal food 



Zbe 5tot£ of tbe IRoot 9 

and drink come to us from vegetable-eaters. We 
use fish largely ; these feed immediately or remotely 
upon vegetables. 

An ample proportion of our medicines, oint- 
ments, and other healing agents come to us from 
plants. 

To the plant world we look for a large amount of 
our clothes, as linen and cotton directly ; silk from 
the mulberry-fed silk-worm ; wool from the grass- 
eating sheep ; leather from vegetable-devouring 
mammals. 

The plant world affords us fuel, immediately as 
wood, or remotely from the coal beds, which once 
were forests. 

Our houses and our furniture are largely of 
wood, contributed by the plant. world. Our horses 
and oxen serve us with strength supplied by plant- 
food. The presence of vegetation increases that 
downfall of rain which fills our springs, wells, 
streams, cisterns. 

The plants, with their million million busy 
mouths, devour from the air seeds of pestilence, 
converting them into beauty and utility; they pour 
into our atmosphere oxygen, and sip out of it 
noxious carbonic acid gas. Thus on every hand, for 
the luxuries and the necessities of our lives, we arc 
debtors to the plant 



10 JSotan^ 

THE STUDY OF PLANT LIFE 

This beneficent and abounding vegetation has 
always attracted the observation and aroused the 
curiosity of the human race. From the earliest 
times plants have been more or less profoundly 
investigated, their beauty and utility alike provoking 
attention. Amid mistakes, myths, superstitions, the 
inquiry has progressed, each generation arriving at 
some real knowledge to add to the stock gained 
before. Errors have been corrected, discoveries 
made, mysteries unsealed, the study becoming more 
and more beautiful under the search-lights of 
science. In these days a young student may easily 
know as much about the plant world as Solomon, 
Esculapius or Pliny. 

No pursuit is more conducive to health, happiness, 
refinement of character than the study of plants. 
This pleasing pursuit keeps one largely in the open 
air, in company with pure and helpful thinking; the 
subjects for study are spread liberally on every hand. 
Without books or instruments, simply by spending 
leisure time and careful observation upon the plants 
about his feet, one can become a fairly good botanist. 
Aided by books, teachers, a cabinet, microscope, and 
collections, one can make rapid advances in plant 
lore. The passion for botanical work grows by in- 



Gbe 5tot£ ot tbe IRoot 11 

dulgence. For all these reasons parents and teachers 
should lead the minds of the young to the interests 
of plant life. 

The study of botany is not " merely the pulling 
of plants to pieces to find out certain dry names " ; 
it is directed to every department of the plant world, 
and invades and brings back trophies from the won- 
der and romance land of the vegetable kingdom. 

One may begin with fossil plants, may continue 
with the alga? of the waters, the lichens on the walls, 
the mosses in the wood, or find ample occupation in 
the life mysteries of the splendid hosts of the flow- 
ering plants. 

THE BORDER-LAND 

One may begin to study the most highly special- 
ized blossoms, and insensibly be led, step by step, 
down to the lower planes of life. The rose beckons 
the student back along the line of plant ascent, and 
beguiles to an investigation of that lesser relation, 
the strawberry, and more humble yet, the star-fa 
cinquefoil. Lower still, the microscope piloting the 
way. we may be among tin.' invisible, SO far as the 
naked eve is concerned. We study, bent over the 
pond. L r la— in hand, tin.' duck-weed : and here is 
something lashing tic water, showing motion ; is it 
an animal or a vegetable? We have reached the 



12 JBotam? 

border-land where these two meet — and mingle. A 
Jew decades ago we were told that the sponges 
marked this indefinite land. Now, the sponges have 
their indubitable place in the animal kingdom, and 
the microscope must direct our way to the wonder- 
ful " What is it?" animal or vegetable? 

Cuvier found four characteristics which duly 
marked the animal from the plant : 1. A food 
reservoir or stomach ; 2. Circulatory system ; 3. Lo- 
comotion and sensibility, provided for by a more com- 
plicated body containing nitrogen ; 4. Respiration. 
In the years that have gone since Cuvier, we have 
found that some animals lack the digestive appa- 
ratus and some plants possess it. The test mark of 
the circulatory system was practically given up by 
Cuvier himself ; chemistry has annihilated the third 
distinction, for nitrogen is as essential to plants as to 
animals ; finally, the respiration of plants is as fully 
marked as in many species of animals. 

What is the test-mark then, the broad arrow of 
the animal kingdom ? Who knows ? Huxley tells 
us that Professor Tyndall asked him to examine 
some microscopic objects traveling in water " by 
spasmodic wiggles." 

" What do you call them ?" asked Tyndall. 

" They may be animals, and then again they may 
be vegetables," said Huxley. 



Gbe StotE of tbe IRoot 13 

Mr. Tyndall replied that " he would as soon be- 
lieve a sheep to be a plant." 

And yet, Huxley says that, after, long study, he 
remains where he was at first : " There is no reason 
why this minute monad may not be an animal, and 
there is equally no reason why it may not be a 
vegetable." 

Such is that border-land between the animal and 
the plant, where the foot of the diligent botanist 
may ultimately tread. Into such Dark Continent 
we do not propose to go. In this simple little work 
a guide-book to the beginning of the way, we merely 
commence the study of Plant Life with the earth and 
end in the earth. 

FROM ROOT TO FRUIT 

There is no season of the year in which we cannot 
pursue the story of plant life. Every month offers its 
theme. Let us devote January to making the ac- 
quaintance of the root. When a seed germinates it 
sends forth a sprout, placed perpendicularly. The 
upper growing point is the stem or ascending axis. 
It has affinity for light and heat ; it produces 
buds, which develop into leaves, blossoms, and 
other parts of a plant. This stem also produces 
roots, for its downward portion has affinity for dark- 
ness and moisture; it is an earth-lover, produces no 



14 starts 

buds, and becomes the root or roots of the new 
plant. 

It is no matter of mere chance which axis of the 
new sprout goes up, and which down ; the stem will 
make a complete bend around the parent seed, if that 
is needed to reach the surface of the earth ; while its 
proper lower part will be at equal trouble to bury 
itself in the soil. 

It is a popular fallacy that stems grow from roots. 
On the contrary roots grow from stems. Even in the 
perennial roots of plants which die down to the 
ground each autumn, the root does not send up fresh 
stems, a portion of true stem remains under ground 
on the root crown, and this it is which sends up bud- 
bearing stems. The distinguishing mark of the true 
root is that it bears no buds, no leaves, no scales. 

There are underground stems and there are also 
aerial roots. AVe have all noted the fringe of roots 
starting from the lower joints of a cornstalk, and 
growing perhaps several inches before entering the 
earth. The heavy stalk needs these additional moor- 
ings, as tents need their cords. Some trees, as the 
banyan, put forth roots from branches high in air. 
These must grow many feet before they can enter the 
earth. None of these roots put forth leaves. We find 
on brook sides sometimes great portions of apparent 
roots, laid bare by the falling away of covering earth. 



Gbe Stors of tbe IRoot 15 

In a few years some of these put on a heavy bark, 
like that of the trunk, and throw out tufts of leaves 
or twigs. This proves them to be branches sent forth 
underground, at the base of the stem. 

A potato is a thick underground stem. The true 
roots of the potato-vine are the string-like fibres which 
grow from the lower portion of the erect stem. What 
we call the potato is a stem thickened for a food 
reservoir. The eyes on this potato are buds : by 
each one is a thin oval or triangular slip of scale — a 
modified, abnormal leaf. The potato-eyes being- 
planted, with a portion of potato for food, begin to 
grow and send out stems and leaves. 

What is a lily bulb — a root ? Cut it in two, behold, 
it is a stem with two buds for next year at its base. 
These thick white scales are closely packed bleached 
leaves or leaf-bases, which never develop further, but 
which are detailed to furnish food to be absorbed by 
the growing stem. A case nearly similar is afforded 
by the onion. 

Take a sweet potato ; that has not the eyes nor 
the scales that an Irish potato shows, to prove its 
status as a stem. What is it? A sweet potato is a 
thickened portion of the true root, Most of the roots 
of a sweet potato vine are fibrous, but in places they 
swell out, forming solid masses, which are store- 
houses of sugar and starch for plant-food. The tend- 



16 JSotan^ 

ency of the sweet potato in a wild state to form 
these food masses has been emphasized by careful 
cultivation. 

Roots are called fibrous when composed entirely 
of string-like clusters, as, for instance, a bunch of 
grass or corn roots. 

Fleshy roots are those that thicken and expand, 
as in the beet, turnip, and carrot. From these 
thickened parts true roots start forth. Look at a 
carrot; the rind or skin of the upper portion of this 
beautiful golden wedge has, by exposure at the sur- 
face of the ground, become tough, fibrous, greenish ; 
it has put forth a cluster of green leaves. The por- 
tion deeper in the earth has a thin, porous skin, 
bright golden color, and sends forth root fibres. This 
carrot is not, then, pure root throughout. The upper 
part of the wedge is stem. Let us carefully lay open 
the thick top, and cut out one by one the leaf stems. 
We can now see how they take their rise, and distin- 
guish the true stem character of the upper part of 
the carrot. The meaning of the long thick wedge is 
again storehouse — food reservoir. The tendency of 
the carrot to lay up food in this way has been 
immensely increased by cultivation. Examine a 
wild carrot, or parsnip, and hi the very much smaller 
" root wedge " we shall detect the true stem charac- 
ter.- A primary root is the first root which starts 



Zbc Stove of tbe TCoot 17 

from the young stem. It is also called the main 
root, or tap root, when it goes on growing without 
branching, except close beneath the stem. From 
the primary root may start out hairs, which develop 
into rootlets. When a number of nearly equal roots 
start out at once from the base of the stem they are 
called u multiple primary roots." There are more 
hairs near the tips of roots than anywhere else upon 
them. These hairs are the chief root channels for 
gathering nourishment. 

All the surface of the root absorbs moisture, and 
this moisture holds in solution mineral foods, which 
are converted into vegetable substance by the plant. 
Every plant is a wonderful laboratory. 

At the tip of each root is a hardened, scale-pro- 
tected point, to enable it to work its way into the 
ground, just as the toes of moles and like digging 
animals are protected by nails. The root tip has 
also a sucker, for drawing up moisture. This is the 
chief mouth of the root. Although the pores of the 
entire root-surface absorb freely, the ends of the 
rootlets are the chief feeders. 

A fibrous root is a feeding root. Fleshy roots are 
feeding roots through their surfaces and rootlets; 
they are also storehouses, or pantries, for laying up 
fond [or the future use of the plant This stored-up 
food is Largely starch and sugar. 
2 



18 JSotan^ 

The office of the root is : I. To obtain nutriment 
for the plant. II. To hold or moor the plant to the 
ground. III. To store up food for future use. 

Most roots are fixed in the earth. There are also 
air or aerial roots, such as the ivy and trumpet- 
creeper send forth from the sides of the stem to 
serve as hands, to grapple the supports upon which 
they climb. Other aerial roots penetrate the bark of 
branches upon which they have fixed themselves, 
and then suck out sap for food. 

Roots are called annual, when they live but one 
year ; biennial, when they live for two years ; per- 
ennial, or ever-enduring, when they live for many 
years. Some plants live over a thousand years. 
Ivies are noted of five hundred years old ; a grape- 
vine eight hundred years old ; trees a thousand 
years old. 

Roots naturally perennial may become annual 
when transplanted to colder than their native places. 
Cold, however, does not kill all roots, it merely sus- 
pends much of their activity. 

When we walk about in January and see the 
earth frozen, or covered with snow, we need not 
fancy that all is still and dead under ground. There 
are millions of mouths below the surface, taking their 
rest, and feeding but little ; there are other millions 
of plant store-houses, food-full, for coming summer ; 




TREASURES OF DARKNESS 



Zbc Storg of tbe IRoot 19 

there are countless underground stems ; and all 
are waiting for the call of spring, to renew their ac- 
tivity, and clothe the earth with beauty. 

In this cold, forbidding month of January the 
plant does not refuse to unveil to us some of the ro- 
mance, the mystery, and the economy of its life. 
Pull up from some plat of unfrozen earth a few liv- 
ing roots and hold them against the light, after giv- 
ing them a slight shake. Tiny particles of earth are 
now seen about the lower part of the root, not ad- 
hering to the epidermis, but held, perhaps, a line 
away, as if the root were covered with a brown- 
dotted lace veil. Examine closely, with the micro- 
scope if possible. Each atom of earth is held by a 
minute hair. These hairs are of great importance 
in the economy of the root. They adhere so very 
closely to the soil that they absorb from it the very 
slightest trace of moisture, if it be no more than 
such a light film as would be found if one breathed 
against glass. That earth must be dry as lava on 
Vesuvius at midday from which these hairs could 
not extract some particles of moisture. In times of 
great drought these fine hairs allow the plant to 
gather enough fluid to enable them to survive, and 
when the drooping plant is watered the hairs most 
speedily gather up and distribute the precious drops. 
These hairs are tubes, but they are tubes closed at 



20 JSotans 

the ends, and they do not absorb by capillary attrac- 
tion, but by their entire surface, as their walls are 
porous. When we speak of tubes, pores, surface, in 
this connection, and pause to consider that in many 
cases each entire hair is almost microscopic in its 
smallness, we wonder, as we are always wondering 
when we study plant life, at the singular perfection, 
in detail, at the marvels of minutiae, at intricacy and 
accuracy in smallness. The life of each of these 
tiny root hairs is short, as the root grows and its 
thimble-cap, its armored apex advances, new hairs 
develop on its surface, and the previous ones die. 
Always there is a fresh series of absorbing hairs, 
these not only sucking moisture from the soil, but 
each one is a little laboratory, where chemical pro- 
cesses are carried on. The wall of the hair-cell di- 
vides the liquid which it receives into its different 
parts. It separates the crystals from the albumen or 
starch, and so passes it on, nicely prepared food-stuff 
for the plant. 

Hairs are not found merely on roots. They occur 
on every part of the plant. In this month of 
January, so unsympathetic with plant life in our 
northern zone, we can make interesting studies in 
plant hairs of various kinds. In a wide botanical 
sense any appendages of the plant skin are hairs. 

Here is a rose bush, raising its dry, reddish stems 



Zbc Storg of tbe IRoot 21 

against a wall; here, along the garden path, 
are our rows of raspberry and blackberry vines, all 
well provided with prickles, which we carelessly call 
"thorns." Real thorns, however, are woody, will 
not come off with the skin, and are, in fact, hardened, 
undeveloped branches. The prickles strip off with 
the epidermis, and are really included properly 
under the general term of hairs. 

These prickles- keep cows, sheep, and other grazing 
animals from eating up the bushes, which have a 
sweetish, aromatic taste, and are sufficiently tender to 
afford very tempting morsels to browsing beasts in 
winter, hungering for something fresh, as we humans 
long for the first crisp salads, radishes, and other 
spring vegetables. Were it not for these blessed 
prickles, not a rose nor a berry would greet our eyes 
next summer, but nature, having thoughtfully de- 
tailed this army of sharp pikesmen to defend her 
sleeping children, they will awaken in the spring in 
health and beauty.. 

Wandering a little farther afield in search of veg- 
etable hairs, we see a tall, rough, dead rod, set with 
seed vessels at the top — the dried stalk of a mullein. 
At its base we shall find a large rosette of greenish- 
gray, thick leaves ; some dry and dead, after a sum- 
mer's expansion; sonic young and still succulent, 
having unfolded late in the autumn. All tin--** 



22 $otan£ 

leaves are covered so thickly with hairs that they 
resemble leaves cut out of coarse flannel or felt. 
Every part of the mullein plant, except the petals, 
stamens, and pistils is hairy. It is a very Esau 
among plants ; nothing but a donkey would graze 
upon it. Exactly why a plant of so little value and 
attractiveness as the mullein should be so carefully 
defended, we cannot see ; the fairer sisters of its kin 
are left almost naked to cold winds and nipping 
teeth. 

The hairs on the mullein plant may serve to make 
it unpalatable, but their primary use is probably as 
clothing for preserving an equal temperature and 
shielding the plant from cold and wet. Very many 
Alpine and far-northern plants are so protected. 
Another instance of hairs as clothing is afforded us 
this January day if we examine the tree buds. 
Some of them, it is true, seem to be very carelessly 
clad. They are of the hardier varieties. Some buds 
are waxed or varnished, but very many are hair-clad, 
fur-wrapped, nature thus dressing her precious babies 
for their winter outing. 

Many seed pods are lined with a delicate network 
of hairs, which are especially numerous and closely- 
woven at the suture or seam of the pod, where it 
will open when the seeds are ripe. 

Here in the fields we find some lingering pods of 



Zbe Storg of tbe IRoot 23 

the silk- weed, which takes its name from the great 
mass of tine silky hairs which fills its seed vessels. 
Nature provided in this fashion for the dissemina- 
tion of the seed. We loosen a handful of the dainty 
hairs from the pod, hold them to the air, and away 
they sail ! They remind us of so many other wind- 
blown seeds ! In spring the dandelion clocks are 
like fairy balloons tilting along the top of the 
grasses. The first breese loosens them ; away they 
go, silver boats with silken sails, voyaging to fairy 
land, to bring back to the children next spring another 
golden age ! Many a farmer who endures dande- 
lions for old love's sake has cursed the equally-well- 
provided thistle, and wished dire wreck to overtake 
every one of its little boats sailing the seas of air ; 
but thistles, like some other creations, seem to thrive 
particularly well on curses ! Prominent among all 
seeds provided with hairy sails stands one that has a 
world-wide and political importance — King Cotton. 
Wliat would the races of men do if that vast mass 
of snowy, elastic, tough hairs which enfold the oily 
seed of the cotton plant met disaster? Ruin, naked- 
. starvation would shriek around a world, all 
for want of certain vegetable hairs! Other plant- 
hairs have a lesa noble reputation. Here is a with- 
ered root of the crimson clover, an introduced 
variety. The Agricultural Department of the 



24 33otan£ 

United States sends out word that the hairs, plentiful 
on the calyx of this beautiful trefoil, are often dan- 
gerous to cattle, as they form balls in the intestines. 
If we close our January botanical ramble in a 
greenhouse, we are still met by fresh examples of 
vegetables hairs. Here is the stem of an elephant 
ear, hirsute as the face of a Russian sledge driver ; 
and here is a palm, with stem wrapped and twisted 
with long interlaced hairs until it looks like a rav- 
elled door mat. Such hairs secure an equalized 
temperature, keep out wet when the plants grow in 
their native state in lands with rainy seasons, and 
serve in dry seasons to hinder the evaporation of the 
moisture of the plant. This study of plant hairs will 
come up again. 



CHAPTER II 



THE STORY OF THE STEM 



February 

" Ancient pines ! 
Ye bear no record of the years of man. 
Spring is your sole historian." 

The stem is that part of the plant which bears all 
the other organs. It produces roots from its base ; 
leaves, branches, flowers, fruit from its sides and 
apex. As the human body maintains the head and 
limbs, sheltering within it the various organs of 
breathing, nutrition, circulation, etc., the stem serves 
the plant as a body, upbearing and supplying the 
organs. 

One department of the plant world is truly stem- 
less. These stemless plants have neither roots, leaves, 
nor seeds. They are mere expansions of cellular 
tissue, beautiful, useful, wonderful, varied. At present 
a few of their names, only, are mentioned with some 
of the most common examples. They form too dif- 
ficult a study for the amateur in botany. 

Some plants are apparently, but not truly, stem- 
less, The leaves and flowers seem to spring directly 

25 



26 JSotan^ 

from the roots. If we uncover the base of the leaf 
cluster we find a thickened root-like portion called 
" the crown of the root/' which is really a shortened 
stem, sending leaves and bloom from its upper sur- 
face, and roots from the lower surface, The dande- 
lion, primrose, and cowslip are examples. 

Take a cyclamen plant, lay it bare of earth, and 
you find a fleshy button, from the top of which grow 
leaves, from the bottom roots. This button is a stem, 
which, as a bright child said, " grows sideways, not 
upwards.'' Jack-in-the-pulpit, beloved of all chil- 
dren, has a solid bulb, called a corm, or very short 
stem. The roots are sent out, fringe-like, in a ring 
about the thickest part, above them rise leaves and 
Jack. The cyclamen button-stem enlarges and lasts 
for years ; the corm of Jack-in-the-pulpit forms the 
first year, is eaten by Jack for his health the next 
year, another corm forming during this process, just 
above the roots, 

All this storing up of fleshy stem is to provide 
food for the upper parts of the plant. The lily, 
onion, hyacinth form bulbs of thick, bleached imper- 
fect leaves, about the base of the stem, as described 
in the previous chapter; these are devoured in the 
process of seed making. 

In the woods in May, you find a plant with a 
slender stem, gracefully bent by the weight of leaves 



Gbe Stors of tbe Stem 27 

and flowers. The leaves grow on the upper side of 
the stem, the little white bell-blossoms droop in the 
arch beneath them. This plant is the " Solomon's 
Seal." Later in the season these flowers have given 
place to blueberries containing seeds. Digging up 
this plant you will rind that the slender stem is but 
a branch from a thick underground stem, from six 
to ten inches long ; this lies horizontally, having at 
one end a bud preparing for a leaf and flower stem 
for next year. The underground stem is marked at 
regular intervals by a round, smooth scar, indicating 
where a stem died down to the undergound portion 
the previous year. Each year the new bud develops 
fresh roots, as it sends up a fresh stem. A length, as 
above given, having been made, each year a joint 
and scar die off at one end of the underground root, 
while the new bud forms at the other, decreasing at 
one end about as fast as it increases at the opposite 
extremity. The scars oh the Solomon's Seal under- 
ground stem mark each year of plant life ; they keep 
the record of its growth. 

Another spring wild-flower that has an odd stem 
is the Trillium. It looks like a lily, red, yellow or 
white, and it receives its name from the three-fold 
division of its parts. [f you dig up the short, thick 
underground stem, you will see that it grows in 
rin--. as h' one ring were laid upon another. From 



28 JBotans 

each ring start fibrous roots. The lower end of the 
stem looks as if it had been bitten short off by some 
animal. Every ring on this buried stem marks a 
year of the plant's life ; thus nature keeps some of 
her chronicles. We will mention but one other 
underground stem, that of the potato. 

The potato has three kinds of stems. First, green 
stems which bear leaves ; second, green stems which 
bear flowers and seeds only; third, underground 
stems which are the fleshy tubers that we eat. The 
chief part of the food stuff of the potato plant is 
carried down the leaf stem into these thickened 
underground branches, and there stored up, chiefly 
in the form of starch. The great supply of a very 
nourishing food stuff which the potato is able to lay 
up, has made it a valuable article of diet for man. 
The care of the farmer has been directed to increas- 
ing this tendency of the potato to store up food. 
The potato comes from the uplands of the Andes of 
Chili, and since its discovery, in 1563, it has been 
cultivated in almost every country cool enough for 
its growth. 

A remarkable form of stem is shown in the cactus 
family. These plants grow in hot, sandy countries, 
subject to long droughts. The amount of food and 
moisture which they are enabled to lay up in their 
stems fits them well for their habitation. These 



Zhc Stovy of tbe Stem 29 

cactus stems are green and leafless ; the thick rind 
acts the part of leaves in preparing food. They 
shoot up into tall, strong columns, expand into 
melon-shaped masses, or into that succession of 
fleshy, rudely-oval discs with which we are familiar 
in the " pear cactus ;" also there are other fantastic 
forms. The stem bears the sessile, usually showy 
blossoms, and is abundantly furnished with sharp 
prickles, to prevent the plant's destruction by thirsty 
animals. 

" What do stems bear ?" Let us ask this question 
and answer it as we ramble. " Leaves, flowers, roots," 
we speak briskly ; " fruit," more slowly. " Nothing 
else?" "No." They bear much more than these. 
Excrescences of the rind sharpen into prickles, as in 
the blackberry and rose, protecting the plant from 
devastation. The honey-locust, hawthorn, thorn- 
apple, and plum have large spines which are stunted, 
hardened branches, or stem tips. The barberry has 
thorns formed of undeveloped leaves, hardened 
almost like steel. We know that these are altered 
leaves, as they grow each in an axil, under a bud. 
These are all protective appendages to preserve the 
plant for seed bearing. 

Stems also produce tendrils for climbing purposes. 
Some tendrils grow out straight, until they reach 
a place of support; there they adhere by means of a 



30 ^Sotanv 

flat disc at the tendril tip. As soon as they are fast 
the tendril shrinks or shortens, drawing the vine to 
the place of support. The Virginia creeper exhibits 
this wonderful contrivance. Some stems, as the ivies, 
send out rootlets to fasten upon the rough surface of 
walls and to secure support. The grape vine has 
branching tendrils, which are really altered, sup- 
pressed branches, converted to climbing appliances. 
An examination of tendrils will afford delightful 
study. One variety of tendrils reaches out after 
a stick or stem, and then wraps and curls about it, 
ring after ring, with wonderful precision. 

Plants are divided into herbs, bushes, shrubs, trees, 
according as the stem is soft, short, annual, or large, 
woody, and enduring. The herb has a soft, usually 
green stem, never very tall, dying to the ground each 
year, as the marigold, lily, etc. A bush has a woody 
stem of moderate height, and a rind thicker than 
that of an herb ; it is perennial, as the rose, spirea, 
currant. A shrub has a still thicker, stronger, taller, 
more woody, rougher-skinned stem; it is also peren- 
nial, as the lilac, snowball, syringa. It may be from 
ten to twenty feet high, and is thickly branched. A 
tree is much larger in every w T ay than the shrub. It 
has numerous great roots, a wide spread of branches, 
a strong bark, and lasts from thirty or forty to a 
thousand years. 



Gbe Storg of tbe Stem 31 

Again, stems are divided by their manner of 
growth ; there are straight, upright, much-branching 
trunks, as the pine, oak, elm, and others ; there are 
climbing and twining stems, as the grape and morn- 
ing glory ; stems that run along the ground, as the 
pumpkin; stems that sprawl lazily in every direc- 
tion. Some stems are hollow, as reeds, grasses, oats, 
and wheat; some stems are bare runners, which root 
at their tips, producing new plants. The strawberry 
is of this last variety, and ft is a pleasing experiment 
to set a strawberry plant in a well-tended plat of 
ground and see how many new plants it will pro- 
duce from its runners in the course of two or more 
years. The runner having rooted at the tip, dies off 
and leaves the new plant to send out fresh runners. 

Plants which gardeners tell you " multiply by the 
root," are really growing in this fashion, from runners 
under ground. Many stems can be laid down and 
covered with earth, and thus forced to send out roots 
and buds at their joints or nodes, so producing new 
plants. 

Whenever you find underground a long shoot 
sending out rootlets and scales, you may know by 
the scales that this is a stem, for scales are aborted 
leaves, and only stems produce leaves. Thus the 
potato has at each of its buds <>r eyes a thin scale, 
which Is an undeveloped leaf. 



32 JBotattE 

In all woody stems, the growth of the year is not 
only in height but in girth ; next the bark there is 
produced a new ring of material each year. Examine 
a log that has been cut smoothly across ; you will 
rind that from the centre to the bark it is a series of 
rings. These rings are of unequal width. The 
narrow rings represent dry seasons, where the tree 
had not enough moisture to grow rapidly ; the wide 
rings speak of seasons when the conditions of growth 
were better. Thus the tree writes the history of the 
seasons through which it has passed. 

The young stem lifted into the air differs very 
markedly from the root, in that the tip of the root 
is covered with a protective, horny cap, while the 
growing point of the stem has no such cap. The 
apex of the stem is a bud ; this bud is more or less 
closely wrapped in scales, which seem to be covered 
with a thin varnish to protect the bud from too much 
moisture. The growth of the stem presses this bud 
upward, the scales unfold, the bud opens, leaves and 
branches are formed. New leaves are sent forth at 
the axils, but the growing point, the bud at the apex, 
is still the top of the plant. 

If this apex is cut off it is not replaced by a new 
one, but the vitality of the stem deprived of this 
point of activity, throws out fresh branches lower 
down. 



Gbe Stors of tbe Stem 33 

The gardener frequently cuts away the growing 
point of plants to force them to make more leaves 
and branches, or to send out a richer bloom. For 
instance, if the tips of chrysanthemum stalks are 
clipped off, the bloom thrown out from the sides of 
the stems will be much finer and more profuse. 

Every plant begins with a single cell. This cell 
has an outside case, a soft, jelly-like mass, and within 
that an atom of fluid, called cell-sap. We are not 
now speaking of things that can be seen by the 
naked eye. A good microscope is needed to make 
cells visible. The jelly-like part is the most import- 
ant ; some cells dispense with the sac. A cell en- 
larges, divides, forms new cells ; so plant structure is 
built up. 

Cells united form cellular tissue ; this is most 
abundant in thick, fleshy plants. There are millions 
of cells in a very small plant; countless billions in a 
great tree. Cells built together, in various ways, 
form the tall thick stems, the divided branches, the 
many-shaped leaves, the variously beautiful flowers 
which to our minds compose the plant. 

As the cells lie close together, sometimes the walls 
give way, and from a long line of cells a tube is 
formed. Some cells are built together in such fashion 
as to leave spaces between which form tubes also. 
When we consider that the most delicate silken hair 
3 



34 JBotan^ 

on a child's head is a hollow tube, we can guess 
something of the fineness of the tubes which, banded 
together form stems. 

Why should there be tubes? Why should you 
have a throat to convey your food and drink to your 
digestive organs ? The roots, by their mouths and 
general surface, absorb moisture from the earth. This 
moisture holds, in a dissolved state, many minerals 
as salt, lime, soda, iron, chalk, silex, and others. The 
moisture so gathered up, and laden, ascends through 
the stem, passing up the tubes, and is distributed to 
the leaves and general surface of the plant. 

By the leaves, or the green rind serving instead of 
leaves, this material is turned into plant stuff. It is 
then sent down through the tubes which distribute 
the material to all parts of the plant, to build up 
more cells and tissues. The long, thickened, united 
cells make up the woody fibre of trees, the fine tis- 
sues of the leaves. 

We can think of the stem as a vast series of tubes 
placed side by side, perpendicularly, their walls 
more or less thick, forming different substances in 
the plant for different uses. These fibres are so firm 
that they build up the timber known as iron wood, 
and other kinds of hard wood, as solid and heavy 
almost as iron. Thread, ropes, cloth, are spun and 
woven from these vegetable fibres ; cloth is even 



Zbc ©ton? of tbe Stem 85 

obtained by beating all the soft parts from the fibres, 
and pounding the fibres into a kind of felt. 

If leaves, and some kinds of stems, are soaked in 
water until the soft parts are decayed, this decayed 
portion can be gently brushed from the woody 
frame-work, and the beautiful structure clearly ex- 
hibited. 

Cells are not always placed in columns, or straight 
lines ; they may be spiral, or in rings, or in six-sided 
canals, or in porous sacs laid one against another. 

These interior tissues of the plant serve for circu- 
lation, for breathing, for the digesting of food, for 
building up of frame-work and of fleshy parts — as 
the organs of the body perform such functions for 
animals. 

The bark and rinds of stems and branches are 
formed of tougher tissue, hardened by the air, sun, 
and storms ; it is often spread with a thin varnish- 
like coating, to protect the inner portions from rain, 
and from insects. Some stems, as was noted in the 
previous chapter, are provided with hairs, or fine 
down ; they look as if dressed in fur jackets. 

Near this rind or bark, lie the sap vessels. If the 
bark is cut through all about the trunk, the tree will 
die for lack of circulation of sap. This cutting 
around of the bark near the base of the trunk is 
called girdling ; it is a way taken to kill trees which 



36 JSotan^ 

are to be hewn down. A tree cut in this way early 
in spring, after the sap begins to ascend is so full of 
sap that it will put forth leaves, which w r ill live some 
time on the sap which has already gone up into the 
branches. 

February affords a very good season for the study 
of the stem. In the mild days w r e can search for 
underground stems ; we have the trees and shrubs ; 
also the house plants show us herb stems; the vege- 
tables in the cellar give us further specimens of 
tubers, corms, bulbs. By the aid of a microscope 
very wonderful and beautiful structures will be 
discovered. On a sunny late February day we 
linger in some woodland walk ; there is already the 
promise of spring in the mild air and the clear blue 
depths of sky ; this brilliant atmosphere brings out 
very emphatically the marvelous tracery of stems 
and branches, making the denuded trees almost as 
beautiful objects as those in their leafy prime. Our 
admiration of these graceful and intricate divisions 
and multiplied subdivisions is not lessened when we 
realize that all this network of trunk, branch, limb, 
twig on each tree is the development of some one 
single original bud. In these days in February, 
trunks and branches lose that dry dull look which, 
for three months, has made them appear as dead 
trees ; there is a certain freshness and warmth of 



Zbe 5tot£ of tbe Stem 37 

color in bark and bud which suggests the circulation 
of the sap ; something of that difference which 
appears between a dead and a sleeping human body. 
In fact, in February the sap has already begun to 
rise, as is testified in many parts of the country by 
the active work in the sugar maple groves, where 
gallons of sap are being collected and boiled. From 
almost any stem, if now cut across, water will drip. 
This water, or sap, the life-blood of the plant, is 
forced up by root pressure, which is especially great 
in the early months of the year. One botanist found 
that in a portion of grapevine this pressure of sap 
up from the root had a force sufficient to support a 
column of mercury over thirty-two inches high. In 
some plants, especially young and tender specimens, 
the root drives up the sap at such a furious rate that 
it presses it through the epidermis, and causes it to 
stand in drops on the surface. A very simple 
experiment proves that this upward rush of sap is 
caused by pressure from the root ; take any stem 
from which drops are issuing, cut it from the main 
stock or root, and place it in water — no more drops 
will appear. Of course, these drops are not pure 
water, but hold various substances in solution, and 
these mineral particles will be built up into plant 
Stuff. 

As we examine stems in February or March and 



38 aSotang 

notice the amount of sap issuing from any cut. we 
recall what seems an extraordinary fact — that in 
July and August stems being cut do not leak or 
bleed, and yet in those summer months that under- 
ground engine, the root, must be pumping up liquor 
faster than ever to maintain all that luxuriance of 
leafy growth. The explanation of this is simple : 
the plant, when well provided with leaves, is 
devouring for its own nutrition so much sap — " using 
it up " so fast — and is also losing so much moisture 
to the air, by reason of transpiration, or giving off 
of water in vapor, that no matter how hard the root 
works no water remains standing in the vessels to 
run out when cut. Here, of course, we except those 
peculiar, fleshy stems of some plants of arid coun- 
tries, which stems are always a storehouse of water. 
In our February walk, when the absence of leaves 
and of herbage gives good opportunity for the study 
of woody perennial stems, we at once notice how 
the shape of these is affected by the circumstances 
of their place of growth. In a thick wood the stems 
are slender and tall, shooting up in their effort to 
obtain air and sunlight. When valuable trees are to 
be cultivated, either as landscape ornaments or as 
timber supplies, one early process is to " thin them 
out," giving each one room to make a large stem or 
bole. Travelers in tropic lands tell us that in the 



Gbe Storg of toe Stem 39 

crowded forests of hot countries trees like the palm 
and others having naturally an erect stem, have 
this stem often reduced to very small diameter and 
immensely elongated, so that they seem more like 
vines than trees, clinging to and rambling over 
their stouter neighbors. A tree very common in 
damp woods in New Jersey and other parts of the 
Northern States is the hornbeam, which has not a 
round, but a square stem, the angles being well de- 
fined, and this stem, unable to support its own 
weight, leans on adjacent trees, reaching from one 
to another, its crown emerging finally in some 
very unexpected place far from its roothold. A good 
example of a woody climbing stem in our forests is 
the wild grape, which, in a favorable locality, be- 
comes very large, the main stem several inches in 
diameter, and by its weight finally breaking down 
some large tree upon which it has seized for support. 
If we examine these stems closely we shall find them 
covered with buds, still folded firmly, and we 
remember that that good old botanist, Linnaeus, 
who seemed always to be in close sympathy with 
plants and trees, called these nicely-protected buds 
hibemacula or winter quarters of young branches. 

If the blueness of a February sky and some sud- 
den, unexpected Boftness of the air beguiles us to 
think of something like flowers, we must not expect 



40 aBotans 

to find them in the woods, but in the swamps ; not 
on the hillsides, but down along the brooks. There, 
even in these last days of February, we may find a 
blossom. Even when films of ice and little rifts of 
snow lie about their roots, the willow trees, or rather 
shrubs — for these especial willows do not reach the 
dignity of trees — begin to bloom. 

Who does not know and love these soft, silken 
" pussies," which give their name to the pussy wil- 
lows. They are of a dull pale purple color, and one 
of the daintiest bouquets imaginable is a large bunch 
of the leafless willow stems, closely set with the 
soft purple pussies. In a day or two, if our willow 
branches are kept in water and placed where the 
sun can touch them, the hazy purple turns to a film 
of gold. Looking closely, we shall find that the 
crowded stamens have matured their pollen and are 
ready to toss it off at a touch in a golden shower. If 
we had left the willow stems by their brook some 
gentle breeze, or a brush from the wing of some 
passing bird, or some early bee, would have sent the 
yellow atoms flying. 

Perhaps close by our willow shrubs some alders 
are growing ; the alder stems are hung with scale- 
covered tassels called catkins ; a few da}\s of sun- 
shine and warm air will open those close-set scales, 
and the winds will shake out the folds of little silk 



Gbe Ston? ot the Stem 41 

stamens, the catkins will be tassels of fine floss, also 
covered with golden powder. Nature proudly calls 
them flowers, and is as vain, no doubt, of these first 
little nurslings of the year as she is of iris, or roses, 
or sunflowers. 

Perhaps if we have gone wandering along by 
some February brook we have come at last to a low, 
level land where the brook has so often overflowed 
that it has almost created a swamp. There are tus- 
socks of grass and plenty of prostrate, nearly de- 
cayed, moss-covered trunks to walk upon. Yonder 
we see a large, reddish purple cone, perhaps several. 
Let us go close and admire these plants the more 
the less we touch them. " Hermits of the bog," 
good Thoreau called them, and wrote that they 
were a lesson in cheery courage to all grumblers. 
This thick, lurid bud is a great, fleshy leaf-like 
spathe. It is wrapped together much as a girl 
wraps a shawl or large kerchief over her head, with 
a point hanging down above her brow. This coarse, 
purple, mottled spathe looks very little like the 
snowy hood of an arum, but the two plants are 
cousins. There are hoods and hoods, the dark, 
torn, soiled hood of a crossing-sweeper, and the 
dainty, fluffy, white hood in which Miss goes to 
ball or opera. In Italy plants very like our "bog 
hermit n are called by the people capuchins, because 



42 JBotans 

they think the dark, bent hood looks like the head- 
gear of a Capuchin monk. Around the stems of 
these dull purple spathes we see thick, withered 
leaves, almost leather-like in toughness. These are 
last year's growth, and no doubt it is due to their 
protection and warmth that the sturdy, new buds 
push their way up at the beginning of winter, sur- 
vive the cold and the storms, and are ready at the 
first hint of February mildness to lift their heads in 
the sunshine. After a while, inside this unhand- 
some sturdy cap will rise a club, like that well- 
known Jack-in-the-pulpit, upon which will grow 
tiny blossoms ; then, too, will come the true 
leaves of the plant, almost two feet long and brightly 
colored. What is this curious thing ? Unluckily its 
terrible odor has given it its name. It is the skunk 
cabbage, a sharp, acrid-juiced, slightly poisonous 
thing, which bears are said to relish as " early 
greens." 



CHAPTER III 

THE HOPE OF YEARS TO COME 

March 

" Up rose the wild old Winter King 

And shook his beard of snow : 
1 1 hear the first young hare-bell ring, 

'Tis time for me to go ! 
Northward over the icy rocks, 
Northward over the icy sea, 
My daughter comes with sunny locks, 
This land's too warm for me !' " 

Going out for a walk on some March morning, we 
find the air soft and warm, the skies of a summer 
blue, the water rippling in every little runnel. We 
look about, half expecting to see a bluebird perched 
upon a fence post, a robin stepping among the 
stubble. The stems and branches which appeared 
dry and dead all the winter have now a fresh exhi- 
bition of life. We can almost see the sap creeping 
up through their vessels and distributing vigor where 
it goes. 

Looking toward distant trees, their tops seem in a 
single night to have thickened ; they have a dim, 

43 



44 JSotatiE 

cloudy veil, instead of those sharp outlines which 
have stood so clearly against the winter sky. Under 
shelter of the fences and along the edges of the 
streams, even where ice needles and little heaps of 
snow still linger, we see green leaves of chickweed 
and shepherd's purse, blades of grass, fresh plants of 
cress. 

About the lawns, upon the sod that has grown sere 
and brown with cold, fresh, bright tips and blades 
of grass come pushing up. We look at the shrubs 
and find the buds upon the stems enlarged, the 
glossy scales loosening ; while the lilac, bolder 
than the rest, already presents an edge of green. 

The world is waking up ; the hosts of nature's 
flower-children will soon be marching over the land, 
while blackbird, cuckoo, oriole, thrush, robin, and 
bluebird sound their welcome. The coat of the 
bluejay is taking a new vividness ; great V-shaped 
bands of wild-geese go honking northward ; the 
squirrel comes from his hole ; the woodpeckers whirl 
around the tree boles, and rap, tap, and chuckle with 
increasing gayety. 

Where will the earth find the garments of praise, 
the garlands of joy, with which she will be made 
glorious by Maytime ? They await her, packed in 
seeds of all shapes and sizes. 

Many of us have seen a magician entertaining an 



Gbe fbope of Ideate to Come 45 

audience by taking from a hat an entire wardrobe, 
or from a modest little box a flowing gown, a trail- 
ing banner. Nature performs these marvels for us 
bona fide — not with tricky pretence. Here is a round 
mustard seed, from which a tall herb shall spring ; 
from this other winged atom will come the broad, 
golden disk of the dandelion, where butterflies may 
sit to drink honey, or the tiny golden finch may 
rest and sway, as a fairy bird upon a fairy flower. 

Jewels may be of great value, but their intrinsic 
worth is far less than that of seeds. All the jewels 
of the world might be utterly destroyed, and no 
more ever be found, yet the world could go on with as 
much health and happiness as at present. If all 
the seeds now upon the earth should be suddenly 
destroyed, and no more formed, in less than a year 
every animal upon the earth would be dead of star- 
vation; within two years scarcely a living thing 
would be found upon our globe. These seeds at 
which we glance so carelessly are the hope of the 
world's life. 

Let us go out to the woods to some sunny southern 
slope where maples grow. Turning over the light 
soft earth near the tree roots we shall find the maple 
seeds that ripened last autumn, and are now germi- 
nating. The seeds of the maple are in pairs, which 
are called keys. They look more like little tan- 



46 asotang 

colored moths than keys; the distinctly-veined, 
winged husk is very like the narrow and veined 
wings of many moths. 

These seeds are winged in order that they may be 
blown abroad on the wind and plant new forests 
farther afield. If they all dropped close under the 
shade of the parent tree few would live beyond 
a year or two. 

Where the wing-like husks come together there is 
a thickening of the base of each into an ear-like lobe, 
holding a seed. The wrapping of this seed softens, 
the seed enlarges as the embryo within it grows, the 
husk is pushed open, and slowly comes forth the 
baby tree, composed of two leaves and a stem. These 
two leaves, though very small, are perfect, and even 
green, in the unopened seed. They are not shaped 
like true maple leaves, but are narrow, strap formed, 
with but one vein. They are soft and fleshy ; in 
fact they are pantries, full of food, ready for the 
weak little plant to feast upon until it is strong 
enough to forage and digest for itself. Every one 
knows that babies must bo carefully fed on delicate 
food until they get their teeth. The baby plant also 
needs well-prepared food. 

These two leaflets are neatly laid one upon the 
other, and carefully rolled up, so as to occupy the 
least possible space. Once unfolded you could never 



Zbe 1bope of JiJears to Come 47 

double them up and lay them back in their case. 
Nature's fingers are not so clumsy as ours. 

Between the two leaves is a little white stem. The 
two leaves unfold, and in a few days the air and sun 
have made them bright green. The stem between 
them thrusts a little root into the earth ; this root is 
furnished with hairs. When the root is w r ell formed 
and the two seed leaves have reached full size, a bud 
has formed in the axil between them. This is the 
growing point of the new tree. This bud presently 
opens into a pair of well-formed maple leaves. 

As these leaves increase the seed-leaves diminish ; 
the plant is feeding upon them. The ascending stem 
presses its first pair of leaves upward, forms between 
them two more, and then two more, and thus on. 
Small branches are formed by the end of the summer, 
the seed-leaves are exhausted, and the plant is doing 
its own work. 

It is a good plan early in March to fill a box with 
rich, moist earth and plant in it several seeds each 
of peas, beans, flax, morning glory and corn. Mark 
the places of each kind, and take up a seed at a time 
during the process of growth, to mark the changes, 
and leave one seed of each to become a well-estab- 
lished plantlet. If the box has not more than three 
inches <»f earth in it, and a clean slab of white marble 
is laid under the earth, in the bottom, the growing 



48 3Botan£ 

roots will trace strange figures upon it, which you 
can see when the box is emptied and the marble is 
washed. 

Under the trees in March we find many interesting 
examples of seed-growth. The feeding or seed-leaves 
of the young plant are called cotyledons. All flower- 
ing plants have cotyledons ; the plants whose leaves 
have dividing or radiate veins, and whose stems are 
woody, or at least not hollow, have two cotyledons ; 
grasses, reeds, corn and other grains, lilies, bamboos, 
all plants with hollow stems and the leaf-veins 
parallel have one cotyledon, while pines and trees 
of their class have from three to twelve cotyledons, 
always set in a circle. 

The seed leaves of the pumpkin and squash grow 
in pairs, oval-shaped, not very thick, and have a 
sweetish taste ; they have stored up sugar for the 
baby plant. An odd thing about these cotyledons 
is, that having fed the new plant until it has a good 
root and plumule, or top, and a little pair of tendrils, 
the cotyledons, instead of dying, change their shape, 
and become regularly formed leaves. 

The acorn affords us a nice study in plant growth. 
Soak an acorn, peel it ; you see a seam about the 
nut, lengthwise ; split it here with care ; at the tip 
you find a pair of tiny white points ; these are the 
sprout or new plant. The force of life in these is 




Jin* a GJ?*fdj»v- 



THE INFANTS OF THE YEAR 



Gbe 1bope of lears to Gome 49 

so strong that it can split the acorn apart, husk and 
all ; then behold ! the thick white halves of the acorn 
meat are a pair of cotyledons ! When the sprout 
lifts these above ground they become green ; they 
have a large food supply for the new-born oak, and 
last until thrifty root and leaves render the coming 
tree independent. 

The big horse-chestnut has even greater food-stores 
than the acorn. Acorns and horse-chestnuts can be 
sprouted in pots to study. 

In peas, beans, acorns, almonds, and many other 
seeds the food store is in the seed-leaves, and so is a 
part of the young plant itself. There are other plants 
where the seed is full of albumen, or starch stuff, for 
food, and the cotyledons absorb it by their whole 
surface. Take, for example, a morning-glory seed. It 
is very hard, but as it begins to sprout this hard 
matter softens to a pulp, within which lies the 
embryo, a tiny stem and two small leaflets, or coty- 
ledons. These lie against the store of food stuff, and 
eat it up before they emerge from the husk. The 
two cotyledons are broad and thin, with a notch at 
the end ; this distinguishes them from the true leaves, 
which art; heart-shaped, witli a long, pointed tip. 

Several times, in cutting open a lemon, I have 
found a seed sprouted, a stem over an inch long, and 
two narrow cotyledons of a bright green inside the 
4 



50 SBotang 

lemon. This bright green produced far from light 
within the unbroken skin of a lemon that had for 
weeks been packed in tissue paper, cork shavings. 
and a box, was very remarkable. In this case the 
juice of the lemon had supplied all needed moisture 
for germination. 

The food of the lemon plantlet is in the thick 
cotyledons formed of the halves of the seed. Such 
cotyledons are strong, and when planted in earth are 
able to come to the surface uninjured. The cotyle- 
dons of the morning-slorv, on the other hand, are 
very delicate, and having fed on the small amount of 
food stuff laid up in the seed, they would be broken 
as they emerged from the ground were it not that they 
remain folded flat together with the seed husk, cap- 
like, over their united tips. This cap serves them as 
nails serve the toes of digging animals, or as the hard 
cap at the tip of the rootlet serves the rootlet, pro- 
tecting it from injury as it pushes through the earth. 
When these cotyledons reach the surface the sap ex- 
pands them, they cast off the husk-cap, and spread 
apart. There are no prettier seedlings to study than 
a flax plant, beech-nut, and morning-glory. 

The grain of Indian corn gives us another style of 
germination. The lower portion is soft and floury, 
of a sweetish taste ; the upper part is almost horny. 
As the corn softens and begins to germinate you can 



£be 1bope of l^eats to Come 51 

see the swollen embryo or germ lying against the 
food stuff, which is the larger part of the seed. The 
embryo has one thick cotyledon, and two slim leaves 
twisted together inside this one cotyledon, which 
wraps about them. When the husk is finally 
broken the first leaf springs up and, unfolding, sends 
up two others, which grow fast, while the first leaf 
does not expand any more, but remains as a sheath 
and support for further growth. The husk and coty- 
ledon lie at the base of the stem until they are finally 
dried up. 

The Jack-in-the-pulpit springs from a hard, small 
seed, and has but one cotyledon. This seed-leaf has 
but a small amount of nutriment in it, and that little 
is soon exhausted. Now we must remember that 
Jack possesses a fleshy conn or underground stem, 
which prepared food stores during the previous 
summer. 

Before the one seed-leaf perishes the little roots 
about this conn are bravely at work to give the 
plant a fair start in life, sending up its big, glossy, 
green leaves. Then the leaves, the conn, and the 
rootlets, all working in harmony, are able to provide 
food enough for the large, thick top and its great 
club-like flower cluster. The green leaves of the 
arum, or Jack-in-the-pulpit, come early in the spring, 
in advance of most herbage. They would be do- 



52 ^Sotan^ 

voureci by grazing animals, and the plant thus 
killed, were it not that they are full of an exceed- 
ingly unpleasant, stinging juice, which no animal 
but a donkey can abide. 

During the first weeks of its life the arum makes 
leaves only, for leaves are needed to secure circula- 
tion, digestion, and breathing for the plant. At this 
time the conn underground is firm and plump. 
When the seeds are formed the conn is flaccid and 
shrunken, and the leaves begin to dry and fail. Their 
work is done when seeds are secured. 

All seeds are provided with food in some form for 
the future plant during the early days of its growth. 
Starch, sugar, what is called albumen, or " white 
food, 1 ' are laid up either in the seed-leaf part of the 
embryo or free within the husk of the seed itself. 
This is needful, because a new plant can no more 
obtain food for itself than a new baby, or a chick still 
in the egg. The human baby is fed carefully pre- 
pared food ; the chick in the egg feeds upon the 
white of the egg that surrounds the yolk, until at 
last the little downy chick can peck its way out of 
the shell, toddle about, and forage for itself. 

The seeds, the new plants or seedlings of any 
variety are very numerous. This is needful, as they 
are subject- to many disasters. They may be eaten 
by animals or birds, decayed by overmuch moisture, 



£be 1bope of l^ears to Come 53 

withered by too great dry heat, devoured by worms, 
frozen, choked by too close plant growth, or ruined 
by overmuch shade. If plantlets were not very 
numerous the varieties of plants would presently die 
out. 

This vision of the desolation of the world if the 
general death of the new plants happened, sets us to 
a busy thinking. Each year the harvest of the pre- 
vious years is nearly expended by the time the fresh 
supplies come. The world cannot turn a Bishop Hatto 
and store up its corn ; supply and demand, getting 
and using, pretty nearly balance each other. China 
has floods, or India has droughts, and China and 
India are presently starving, because last year's food 
is eaten up and this year's food failed to grow. When 
the potato crop perished in Ireland there was a 
famine never to be forgotten, because each summer 
only provided potatoes enough for a year, and when 
the blight cut off a crop there was nothing to fall 
back upon. The dependence of the greater upon 
the less, of the animal upon the vegetable, of man 
upon his plant neighbors, is impressed upon us when 
we are told that after that year or two of famine the 
Irish race never fully recovered the vivacity and easy 
gaiety which had until then been theirs. 

When March winds shake out the leaf buds and 
the seeds in the ground begin to stir with strong life, 



54 JSotariE 

we are led to think of the plant's host of enemies. 
There is a war on ; animal righting vegetable, and the 
animal would conquer in the strife, and destroying 
the plant would insure its own destruction, if the 
animal world were only at peace with itself. The 
army of the plant's animal enemies is an army of 
different nationalities, full of mutual hostilities, and 
its divisions are constantly turning against each 
other. This quarrel among its assailants brings 
some aid and comfort to the attacked vegetable. 
Some one writes in this fashion : k> Nature seems to 
have detailed a bug for every root ; worms to build 
nests in every tree ; other worms to devour every leaf; 
insects to attack every flower ; army worms, cut 
worms, all kinds of worms, and grasshoppers to 
eat up everything that is left. The number and 
variety of pests connected with each vegetable are 
alarming ; potato-beetles come in hordes after 
potatoes, and fourteen distinct worms are detailed to 
make war on cabbage." 

When in March we are digging about the roots of 
our flowering plants, or are having the vegetable 
garden " spaded up," we come upon the advance 
guard of the army of the plant's enemies. In the 
sunshine of some unusually fine March day we see 
an innocent-looking white butterfly sailing about — 
that is one individual out of the flying squadrons that 



ftbe 1bope of Jt)ear5 to Come 55 

are to bring on the war ; if we go deep into the ground 
we shall find the " sappers and miners " at work ; 
there are insects to attack roots, leaves, stems, fruits. 
When we look into parks, gardens, orchards, we shall 
get a hint of this war. Here are trees provided with 
belts of tar; other trees wearing girdles of metal, 
troughs filled with water ; others dazzling with a yard 
or so of whitewash ; yet others, where the earth at the 
roots has been turned over and sprinkled with lime 
and ashes. What is all this about ? All this means 
effort to prevent some small, helpless-looking little 
worms or caterpillars from traveling up those trees 
and eating all the leaves. We see the stems of young 
trees cut and channeled by an insect called a borer ; 
others have all their once pretty little twigs swollen, 
rough and black, doomed to death, because some in- 
sect has seen fit to lay her eggs in them. These 
enemies of the plant will not all begin their work in 
March ; they are enlisting, drilling, and furnishing 
their regiments. By June they will be in good 
marching order, a well-disciplined host — only for 
the inveterate hate some of them cherish toward 
others. In March the insects are just preparing to 
wake up from winter sleep ; we will find plenty of 
larva) in the ground, perhaps snuggled up in the 
very roots of the plant they mean to attack when 
the time comes. Just now a shining, motionless 



56 starts 

brown chrysalis looks a very harmless thing ; we 
cover it up when we have laid it bare, and we say 
" let the poor thing sleep ;" the poor thing will wake 
up from its nap and try to rob the big world of its 
dinner. 

Our house-plants, kept warm and moist, nourish 
their enemies into an early growth. In March we 
see some of our favorites growing yellow and hang- 
ing their heads. If we have good eyes or a strong 
lens we shall soon see what is the trouble; here are 
detachments of " red spider," not so big as the head 
of the tiniest pin, but with a great appetite for 
leaves, which he riddles and nips and kills, in spite 
of his tiny dimensions. On another plant an amaz- 
ing colon} T of aphis has settled down ; a very wonder- 
ful little bug, the aphis, about which learned articles, 
and even books, have been written. It looks a help- 
less mite, not much larger than a poppy seed, and 
dressed in green like the leaves it lives on. Unless 
we can get rid of the aphis we shall soon lose our 
plants. Our best ally here will be another of the 
insect army, a beautiful, friendly little creature that 
never harms man and his plant partners and pro- 
viders. This is the lady beetle, or lady bug, a dainty 
creature, dressed in red, black dotted, or in orange 
or black with red dots. 

Out of doors that delicate white butterfly, drifting 



Gbe 1bope of IJeare to Come 57 

up and down on the breeze, fair as the soul of a 
flower, will lay an egg out of which will crawl the 
cabbage-worm, terror of gardeners. Over the goose- 
berry and currant bushes a host of simple, trans- 
parent-winged flies will swing up and down in early 
May. Just now these flies are wrapped up in snug 
cases in the ground, so well hidden that we cannot 
find one of them. In May, as they swing about in 
the sunny air, they will seem to grow weary and 
will keep darting upon the bushes ; fatal enough are 
those seeming restings. The saw-fly is not as care- 
less as she appears to be ; she is laying her eggs, and 
swarms of currant-worms will come forth to strip 
the bushes of every leaf and destroy all hopes of 
gooseberries and currants, unless the legions of the 
worms can be killed by poisonous sprayings. 

The chinch bug, the squash bug, the Colorado 
beetle, the grasshopper, .and the tent-caterpillars are 
now, in March, having the final " beauty sleep " of 
their winter rest. If they and their fellow-soldiers 
can have it all their own way in a few w T eeks there 
will scarcely be a plant left to comfort our hearts. 
But right along with these insect enemies, among the 
roots and under the bark of the plants, hidden in 
cozy nests in axils of buds and stems, swinging in 
woven cradles on twigs, or the under side of dry 
leaves, are the' deserters from the ranks of insect 



58 :fBotanE 

enemies, the revolting squadrons that will fire upon 
the battalions of their own armies. Here are the 
larvse and pupae of the black ground-beetles, harm- 
less, helpful things, that Ave think so ugly because 
their legs are so long. Here are the cradles of the 
splendid tiger-beetles, enemies of all spiders. Wheel- 
bugs and soldier-bugs, asleep under grass in tiny 
hard cases, will come out in a hurry to save the 
wheat crops. All the beautiful lace-wing flies that 
spend their infancy among the cool shadows of 
water-plants, and are now watching the stirring of 
spring life among flags and rushes, will come to the 
rescue of the plant world, because they have big 
appetites, and nothing satisfies them but the juices 
of other insects. 

Here in March, as our crocus blooms push above 
the brown mold, and the hyacinths and tulips send 
up points of green, while the peony reaches up 
crimpled leaves red as rubies in the sunshine, the 
greatest of all the allies and the defenders of the 
plants have come to welcome their earliest awaken- 
ing — here are the birds. Why were not all the 
plants destroyed when there were no farmers and 
gardeners around to sprinkle and spray and pick and 
shake and net? How comes it that the wild plants 
and fruits are not driven from the face of the earth 
by insect enemies ? Why ? Simply because in these 



Gbe Dope of Jljears to Come 59 

wild conditions of nature's making the birds are not 
killed, frightened or driven off, and for every berry 
or bud a bird may take for his food, he saves per- 
haps a million. It has been estimated that the birds 
of Nebraska in six months eat up five billions of in- 
sects, and would clean up of noxious insects over 
eighteen thousand acres a day. 

When in March we dress up our garden borders, 
or walk out to watch plant growth in the woods, we 
see nothing of the harmless silent toads, among the 
kindliest friends of the plant. The little gray toad 
and the small, prettily colored ground snakes live 
entirely on animals that are harmful to plants — as 
worms, insect larvae, mice, and moles; the little snakes 
taking these last in hand — or rather in jaws. The 
one fault of the little garden snake is that he likes to 
eat toads. The toad, on the contrary has no faults 
at all. When he wakes from his winter's nap he will 
sit down by some plant and pick off, one by one, 
every insect enemy that comes intent on evil. 



CHAPTER IV 

WHEN THE WOODS ARE LEAF-GREEN 

April 

"Summer is y'coming in, 

Loud sing cuckoo ! 
Groweth seed, bio wet h mead, 
And springeth the weed anew. 

Sing cuckoo, cuckoo ! 
Well singest thou, cuckoo, 
Never thy like I knew ; 

Merry sing cuckoo !" 

Foliage is the most prominent feature of the plant 
world. Trunks and branches are large and grand ; 
the parti-colored flowers are, at first glance, more 
beautiful, but the leaf is the most conspicuous part 
of vegetation. If flowers and leaves exchanged 
places, and wherever is now a leaf we should have a 
blossom, the eyes would soon tire of the glare of 
vivid color, and we should long for the soft, restful 
green of leaves. 

When w r e speak of a leaf w T e think at once of the 
flat, green, expanded body, springing from the stem, 
or from the hidden root crown. This is truly the 
60 



WLben tbe moofcs are %c*UQveen 61 

typical, or chief form of the leaf, and when there is a 
departure from it we call such departure a " modified 
leaf." 

The white thick scales of the onion or lily bulb 
are leaves ; the scales which wrap up buds, the coty- 
ledons, the thick divisions of the house-leek, the 
tendrils of the pea-vine, the thorns of the barberry, 
the brown woody scales of the pine, or larch-cone, the 
needles of the pine, the little, odd-shaped bracts on 
stems, are all leaves. In fact, all the parts of the 
flower, the calyx, petals, stamens, and pistils, are 
really leaves. When we now speak of leaves, we 
mean leaves in the popular sense, the common leaf, 
which is the type or pattern of leaves usually borne 
on a stem, a green, expanded body, performing for 
the whole plant various and necessary offices. 

Early in April we find the leaf buds unfolding 
upon the sides of the stems, or pushing up through 
the ground. Some of these buds are placed opposite 
to each other upon the stem, some are in rings 
around the stem, others are set alternately, others 
spirally, so that if you follow witli a thread the 
placing of a certain number of buds you will see 
that the thread has made a complete circuit of the 
stem, and then another. Where the leaves arc in a 
spiral placement it is merely a whorl drawn out ; 
where there is a whorl it is but a compressed spiral. 



62 :JBotanE 

On pines the needle-formed leaves grow in bundles 
or clusters, and a scale-covering wraps all the buds 
of such a cluster together ; bundles of this fashion 
are flattened branches. 

Having noted the placing of the buds, let us see 
how the leaves are packed away in them before 
opening. The leaf of a cherry or oak is folded flat 
together by the mid-rib, or woody vein in the 
centre. A currant leaf is folded like a tiny fan furled 
up ; a plum leaf is rolled up inward, first one side 
being rolled, and the other rolled over it, toward the 
mid-rib. Some leaves — as those of the azalea — are 
rolled over backward to the mid-rib on each side, 
making two little tubes. Exactly the opposite is the 
manner of rolling of the violet leaves, where the 
tubes lie on the upper side. 

When the leaf buds are nearly ready to open, you 
can study the method of packing if you have a micro- 
scope. Cut a bud across the thickest part, and ex- 
amine the cut sections. 

Let us consider the great number of leaves that 
each plant possesses— the countless blades of grass, 
the multitudes of pine-needles, the heavy shade of 
forest trees, produced by small leaf overlapping and 
overhanging leaf in a vast, almost impenetrable 
dome of verdure. We wonder if there can be more 
drops in the ocean, or more grains of sand on the 



TUHben tbe Tldoofce are Heat^teen 63 

seashore, than leaves on plants ; yet every leaf has 
had all this careful folding and placing in the sum- 
mers that are past, and untold hosts of leaves are 
now being placed and packed for summers yet to 
come ! 

Leaf buds are generally protected from wet and 
cold by thick scales, fine down, hairs or coats of a 
resinous gum, exuded from the plant. These pro- 
tective coverings give way when, by the rising of sap 
and the effect of warmth, the buds begin to expand 
from within. The first days of April show us the 
swelling buds ; by the end of the month the world 
is in a gala dress of expanded foliage. 

An ordinary leaf consists of a blade, or broad part, 
a footstalk to hold it to the main stem, and a pair 
of stipules or wing-like, green expansions, on each 
side the footstalk. Stipules are well shown on rose 
and clover leaves. Some leaves have no footstalk, 
many leaves have no stipules, therefore we see that 
the blade is the only really needed part of the leaf. 

Let us look at a leaf blade. The woody fibre 
which makes up the main stem and, bound into a 
little bundle, composes the foot-talk, spreads out into 
a light, woody framework for the leaf. Tins frame- 
work is usually in two layers, like the nervures in a 
butterfly's wing. The central line of the frame is 
called the mid-rib, the other parts arc styled the 



64 :JBotans 

veins. Some of these veins are coarser and stronger 
than others, as for example, those which expand in 
the large side-lobes of maple and oak leaves ; other 
veins are as fine as spider's web. Every student of 
botan} r should make studies in venation, by soaking 
leaves until the green part has decayed, then laying 
them on black cloth, and brushing the pulp away 
gently with a fine brush, when perfect specimens of 
frame-work will remain. 

The form of the leaf depends upon the woody 
frame-work. Upon it is spread the green pulp called 
parenchyma. This is composed of cells, while the 
woody frame-work is formed of expanded or modi- 
fied cells, called vessels. Over all the leaf is laid a 
thin, transparent skin, named an epidermis, which 
covers the footstalk, stipules, and all leaf append- 
ages. Usually the epidermis on the upper side is 
more glossy and of a finer texture than on the lower 
surface, which is softer and more porous. As we 
shall see, there is good reason for this. 

All plants which have one cotyledon have hollow 
reed-like stems, and their leaves have parallel veins ; 
that is, veins running side by side, without branch- 
ings ; grasses, grains, rushes, lilies, palms, bamboos, 
are of this one-cotyledoned, parallel-veined family. 

There are two different kinds of parallel venation. 
There may be a mid-rib, and the veins run from this 



TOben tbe TKHoofcs are TLeaUgxeen 65 

to the margin, as in the calla lily and the pickerel 
reed. The other fashion shows no mid-rib, and the 
veins all run from stem to tip, as in the corn, grasses, 
lily-of-the valley, and others. 

Some net-veined leaves appear at first glance to be 
parallel- veined ; a little examination will show the 
difference. 

Plants which have two seed-leaves, or cotyledons, 
have woody or not hollow stems, and the leaves have 
radiated or net veins. Reaching the beginning of 
the blade, the woody fibre in the stem divides into a 
main central line and various branches. These veins 
are not only a frame-work, but as they are hollow 
they serve as canals or a circulating system to carry 
the sap into all parts of the leaf and return it to the 
stem, to visit all other parts of the plant. 

The form of the leaf in even minute particulars 
depends upon the carrying out of woody fibre. 
Whenever it ceases or gives way the parenchyma or 
pulp and the covering skin also give way. In this 
manner the great variety of form in leafage is pro- 
duced. 

All parallel-veined leaves have smooth, even edges. 
Some net-veined leaves, as those of the senna, the 
buckherry and American indigo, have also even 
edges. Mosl net-veined leaves have cut or uneven 
margins. 
5 



66 JBotanv? 

In some leaves the edge is waved in large scallops, 
as in the nasturtium : others have smaller, rounded 
scallops : some are edged in sharp points, setting 
straight out or forward or backward. Some leaves 
are more or less deeply lobed. like those of the 
maple, oak. currant ; some look as if pieces had been 
deeply cut away, almost to the mid-rib ; others are 
slit or cleft, but not cut out. The castor-bean has 
its leaves divided entirely down to the mid-rib. 
Some leaves have the lobes spread out like an open 
hand : others are divided like feather-. 

A compound leaf is a large leaf made up of many 
little leaflets, as those of the locust and rose. The 
horse-chestnut leaf has live divisions, the clover 
three : the meadow rue, maiden-hair fern, and honey- 
locust have many. Sometimes, as in the pea and 
vetch, the end leaflet of a compound leaf is turned 
into a tendril or two for climbing purposes. 

The foot-talk holding the leaf to the main stem is 
generally short : sometimes it is very long, and used 
as a tendril for a climbing plant, being wrapped 
around and around some support. Some leaves are 
sessile or without footstalk, sitting close upon the 
main stem, or the branch. Other leaves seem to 
have the stem thrust right through their lower 
portion, as in the wild bell-wort. In such case the 
lobes of the leaf have grown together, clasping the 



TKttben tbe MooDs are HeaUQteen 67 

stem. The coral honeysuckle appears to have the 
stem growing through the very middle of each leaf; 
in this plant two opposite leaves grow together at 
their lower portions. 

Some leaves are heart-shaped, as those of the 
morning-glory and violet ; others are quite round, as 
those of some water-lilies ; some are lance-shaped, 
or arrow-shaped, and so on for many varieties. The 
student of botany should draw or press examples of 
all these shapes and margins. 

While all these forms of leaves have some re- 
semblance to each other and their position as foliage 
is clearly evident, other leaves are so remarkably 
modified that their character is scarcely recognized 
at first sight, Thus the barberry rolls up some leaves 
into sharp, woody thorns, the mid-rib embracing all 
the other parts. The pea, as we have seen, details 
some leaflets for tendrils ; the agave, or century 
plant, builds up great leaves, one or two inches thick, 
using the green outer portions to do leaf duty, and 
the white inner part to serve as storehouses. 

The sun-dew and dionea, or fly-trap, separate a 
portion of the leal', edge it with prickles, provide it 
with honey-drops, turn the mid-rib into a sensitive 
hinge, and lo, a bait and a trap for catching unwary 
insect> ! The pitcher-plant in its several varie- 
ties unites the outer cd^^ of a part of tin' leaf 



68 ffiotatiE 

into a water-tight pitcher, which it keeps full of 
liquid. 

The general color of leaves is green, but some, as 
those of the coleas, are of various brilliant colors — 
scarlet, yellow, reel, purple ; other leaves, as some 
varieties of bergamot begonia, striped grass, have 
green leaves, mottled with white, yellow, or brown ; 
other plants have green leaves and parti-colored 
edges. 

Some leaves emulate the blossoms in fragrance ; 
the orange, lemon, mint, sage, thyme, geranium 
families have in their leaves a rich odor. All this 
variety in form, color, fragrance, adds greatly to the 
beauty of foliage. Ruskin says : " The leaves of the 
herbage at our feet take all kinds of strange shapes, 
as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped, 
heart-shaped; fringed, fretted, cleft, furrowed; in 
tufts, spires, wreaths ; never the same from foot- 
stalk to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our 
watchfulness and to take delight in outstripping our 
wonder." 

Leaves were not created chiefly for beauty, but for 
use. What is the use of the leaf? a To give shade," 
you say. That is one, perhaps the least important 
of the functions of the leaf. Animals and plants alike 
are indebted to the shade of foliage for much comfort, 
and for some further possibilities of life and growth. 



When tbe TOoofcs are Xeaf^teen 69 

You suggest, as another use, the supply of food. Yes. 
the grasses and many herbage plants are greedily 
browsed by animals ; we owe to them our supply of 
beef, mutton, milk, butter, cheese, and other articles 
of food. Lettuce, cabbage, cress, parsley, are fa- 
miliar examples of leaves eaten by man, while 
endive, chicory, thyme, sage, dandelion, mustard, 
are more or less used upon the table. 

We have not yet reached the most important 
functions of the leaf. To the plant itself the leaf 
serves as a food purveyor, gathering perhaps the 
larger portion of plant food from air and moisture 
by absorption. The leaf is also the main breathing 
apparatus of the plant ; the leaf spreads out to air 
and sunlight the food matter received by the entire 
plant, and thus secures chemical changes in it similar 
to assimilation and digestion. The leaf makes pos- 
sible the circulation of the sap. Thus the leaf serves 
the plant as throat, lungs, and stomach. What the 
human being would be without such organs the 
plant would be without the leaf, or some part modi- 
fied, as in the cactus family, to serve the purposes 
of the leaf. 

How does the leaf perform its duties to the plant ? 
The root absorbs water, holding in solution various 
mineral substances; this rises as sap through the 
tube- of tie- -tmi to the Leaves. There it is spread 



- JSotang 



out through the veins to every part of the leaf sur- 
face Thus it is exposed to light, air, sun-heat, until 
it is chemically changed, cooked, as we may say, 
into good plant food. The cells in the parenchyma 
hold the coloring matter of the leaf, which is 
called chlorophyll, or green stuff. This is the chiel 
agent in digesting plant food. There is also other 
coloring matter known under one general name oi 
chromule. The presence of sap in the leaf adds es- 
pecial lustre to these coloring materials. In spring, 
when sap is abundant, the leaves are much richer 
and brighter in color. 

When leaves have fallen in the cold season the 
roots are also at rest in the soil, the stem ceases to 
send up sap; the whole plant seems asleep. You 
may cut a sugar-maple stem in winter and no sap 
flows • if you cut it in spring the sap rushes out. 
Grapevines and trees should be pruned in the late 
autumn, so that the scar may harden over before sap 
rises in the spring. This care will prevent leakage, 
weakening to the plant. 

In the potato and other plants having tubers or 
conns, a large portion of the ascended sap, laden with 
the food-stuff gathered from the air by the leaves is 
sent back through the stem vessels to the under- 
ground storehouses. When, as in the agave and other 
like plants, the leaves are themselves the storehouses, 



IWlben tbe Moo&s are TLezUgxeen 71 

a large amount of food is retained in the fleshy 
tissues of the leaf. 

From the air the plant absorbs an abundance of 
carbon, with less oxygen and hydrogen. From 
these, and the material brought up by the sap from 
the soil, the plant, chiefly by the agency of the 
leaves, makes starch, sugar, resin, gum, oils, jelly, 
and a great number of substances useful to men, 
and eventually becoming the food-supply of the 
animal kingdom. 

Leaves receive constantly more or less moisture 
from the air. This is chiefly absorbed by the under 
surface of the leaf. Leaves that hang sidewise, 
having the edges to earth and sky, are alike on both 
sides ; leaves that are set horizontally, with the one 
surface to the earth, have that surface softer and 
more porous. 

The leaf surface being full of cells, exposed to air 
and heat, their sap contents become rarified or given 
off, and this causes an upward pressure of sap 
through the stem-vessels to fill them; these, being 
crowded full, the sap, by natural gravity, begin- to 
seek th'' Lower parts of the plant, and thus two con- 
stant currents of circulation are kept up — a bringing 
up of material, a carrying of this material changed 
to food-stuS downward, and ;i distribution of it for 
building purposes throughout tic whole plant. 



72 33otati£ 

The foliage not only prepares food fit for plant 
use. but it also prepares air lit for the breathing of 
animals. The out-breathing of all animals is loaded 
with carbonic acid gas. which is a poison ; their in- 
breathing takes from the air oxygen, which is whole- 
some and valuable for all animals. It is evident 
that all the air in the world would become loaded 
with carbonic acid gas poison and robbed of useful 
oxygen were not some way contrived to exhaust the 
one and replace the other. Here the plant comes in 
to restore the balance of affairs. The out-breathed 
carbonic acid gas is the chief food of the plant world. 
Oxygen is a drug in the market to plants: a very 
small trace of it suffices for their needs. Thus while 
men breathe out carbonic acid gas and breathe in 
oxygen, plants do exactly the reverse; they out- 
breathe oxygen and in-breathe carbonic acid gas. 
Thus the plant and the animal form a mutual bene- 
fit society, and prepare air that suits all concerned. 
The green parts of the plant, chiefly the leaves, are 
the agents in this constant reconstruction of the 
atmosphere. 

Activity for many months in all these directions 
exhausts the energies of the plant for the time being. 
The leaves, the stem, the veins become clogged by 
the abandoned particles of solid matter. This is 
especially the case in the leaf. stem, and veins. The 



WLben tbe MooSe are %caUQvccn 73 

seeds being perfected, the work of the plant for the 
year is accomplished, and the root-mouths are less 
active. The capillary vessels and the leaf-cells no 
longer force sap through the plant. Unfed by sap, 
too much clogged to feed from the air, the leaf fades. 
At the axils of the leaves the buds for next spring 
are formed, and thus by surfeit and by pressure the 
old leaf is severed from the parent stem. This is 
rendered more easy by a peculiar construction of the 
cells at the foot of the leaf-stem. 

Properly to perform their offices, leaves need 
abundant light and air. If they grow under water 
or in dense hedges, where the supply of air and sun- 
shine is limited, new plans must be laid for securing 
what is indispensable. We find that leaves growing 
in such situations are very finely divided, even when 
in other conditions the plants bear leaves but little 
divided. Where great economy is demanded, at 
once the plant forms deeply-divided leaves which 
shall act as a seine to intercept as much as possible 
of the light, air, and moisture demanded for convert- 
ing crude sap to plant-food. The additional surface 
secured by these repeated divisions makes up for the 
harder circumstances of their lives. 

Organs so valuable as leaves must be protected. 
Leaves are sometimes defended by sharp prickles, as 
in the cactus, thistle, holly; by rough coats, as the 



74 JSotan^ 

mullein ; by tough epidermis, as in the plantain and 
yucca; by pungent juice, as Jack-in-the-pulpit ; by 
nauseous taste, as the burdock ; by height, as the 
palm, oak, cedar. Some hide under water, some 
float on ponds, while mere numbers secure others, 
as the grasses. 

However much interest we find in the varieties, 
the development and offices of leaves, it is impos- 
sible to confine our attention strictly to leaves when 
in April we carry on plant-life studies out of doors. 
As March closes, flowers are scarcely to be found, 
but the first breath of April seems to have awakened 
a host of the darlings of the spring. Perhaps the 
earliest hint of a flower is when one finds the earth 
strewn with small, red scales and tiny clusters of 
filaments. We look up. The tops of the elms against 
the blue sky have suddenly thickened, these scales 
and threads are the bloom of the elm tree. Looking 
from what is high to what is very low we find the 
ground almost covered in places with the tiniest of 
flowers, the dainty little bluets ; on stems half an 
inch long, surrounded by leaves no larger than a 
small grain of rice, these wee blooms, not much 
larger than a flax-seed, but perfect in form and 
matchlessly blue in coloring, too tiny to pick or to ' 
put into bouquets, challenge our liking, small babes 
of the opening season. 



llXUben tbe IDClooDs are TLeaUween 75 

Under the fences or on the wet sides of runnels 
along the road the chick-weed opens its white stars. 
Many of the spring flowers are white. Conspicuous 
among these are the blossoms of the shad-bush or 
service-berry, sometimes called " June-berry," be- 
cause its clusters of reel fruit ripen in June. The 
shad-berry is a tall shrub growing on low hillsides 
near brooks, which it seems to delight to overhang, 
viewing its graceful reflection in the still mirrors of 
water between the stones. The snowy-clustered 
blossoms come while the tree is still bare of leaves, 
and every stray breeze tosses about the long, slender 
loosely-hanging petals, which seem at first sight just 
ready to be blown away. This plant has one of its 
names from the notion that its white banners were 
unfurled when the first run of shad began to ascend 
the rivers. Early settlers named it also " service- 
berry," from the use which the Indians made of the 
fruit — drying it, beating it into a kind of cake, or 
squeezing out the juice for a drink. 

The white blossoms dance on the April air, timed 
to that refrain so glad to flower-lovers, " Lo, the 
winter is past." Do the beautiful wood anemones 
hear and understand that ? They arc the next flower 
that appears in the spring. Now and then one or 
two come out in the last days of March, bul they aiv 
small and pale, seeming to shake with tin 1 cold. All 



rjQ 3BotanE 

the poets have loved the anemone?. Bryant tells 
how " gay circles of them danced on their stalks," 
and Whittier sings of how "dainty wind dowers 
sway." White is the usual dress of the anemones, 
but we have seen them pale purple, pink, or blue. 
One oddity about them is the variable number of 
their petals ; one may count them all the way from 
four to fifteen : probably five is the normal, and 
when more appear some of the stamens have per- 
haps chosen to abandon their pollen-bearing and ex- 
pand to the more showy petal form. These petals 
also are sometimes dissimilar in shape, in a five- 
parted blossom each segment is nearly oval ; where 
the petals are numerous several are queer, crooked, 
crimpled, triangular, or cone-shaped affairs. The 
foliage of the anemone is as delicate and pretty as 
the flowers, usually three leaves, each made of three 
deeply-serrated leaflets, from among winch the 
simple stem lifts the frail, solitary blossom. This 
wood anemone has a cousin, the rue anemone, so 
called because its leaves resemble those of the rue- 
plant This rue anemone has smaller blossoms than 
the wood anemone, several springing on short stems 
from the same axil as the leaf stalks. The rue anem- 
one likes a deeper shade than its cousin, and loves 
to hide at the roots of old trees. 

We have spoken of the " corolla " and " petals ol 



mhen tbe Woods are %eaUQveen 77 

the anemone ; "this was, in fact, a concession to ap- 
pearances, the white petal-like segments are really 
sepals ; there is no corolla, the calyx is the whorl of 
showy- white or colored sepals surrounding the sta- 
mens and pistils. The root of an anemone would 
have afforded a pleasing specimen for our study of 
roots — it is composed, in the wood anemone, of a 
singular, fleshy, scimiter-shaped stock ; from the 
point of the scimiter, or near it, rises the smooth, 
simple stem, from the other extremity of this root- 
stock branch several long, slender rootlets. The rue 
anemone has five tubers shaped something like a 
sweet potato, from each of which depends a cluster 
of branched rootlets. The Greeks had many stories 
and romances about the anemone. They believed it 
sprung from the tears Venus wept over dead Adonis ; 
they gave its name as signifying that the blossom 
opened at the wind's bidding, and they called it " The 
wind shaken." The Persians said that the anemone 
had a subtle poison which it poured upon the wind, 
and the flower with them was an emblem of sickness. 
Perhaps these Oriental anemones were unlike the 
flower to which we give the name; our anemones, 
loving the winds and the woods, seem emblems of 
vigorous health, under a delicate appearance. 

Another white flower, among the first to bloom in 
tin.' April woods, while yet there are almost no leaves 



78 JSotanE 

to cast a shade under the trees, is the beautiful blood- 
root, the sanguinaria, so called from the crimson 
juice of its medicinal root. The sanguinaria is a 
showy flower as large as a silver dollar. This snowy 
denizen of the woodlands is a close cousin to the 
gaudy poppy. The leaf of the blood-root is large, firm, 
deeply-lobed, and with thick veins. The leaf stem and 
the flower stem leave the fleshy rootstock together, 
emerging from a scoop-shaped scale and curving up- 
ward, the flower-stem lying within the clasp of the 
leaf stem, and the flower bud, cased in the two sepals 
of its calyx, resting within the leaf, which is closely 
curled about its precious charge ; its firm, well-folded 
tip making its way through the mold. The leaf, 
having safely emerged to the light, begins to expand, 
and the flower stalk greatly accelerates its growth, 
lifting itself from the clasp of the leaf and becoming 
twice as high as the leaf stem. The two sepals bend 
back against the stem, and presently drop away. 
The silvery-white salver, composed of from seven to 
twelve strap-shaped petals, expands broad and beau- 
tiful, with a cluster of some twenty-four short golden 
stamens, crowded around a single pistil. The beauty 
of this flower is very fleeting, two or three days will 
hasten the maturity of all these spotless blossoms, and 
then the first breeze will sweep them all away, leaving 
the pistil to expand its sharp-pointed seed vessel. 



TKUben tbe TKIloo&s are %ezUQxeen 79 

The Indians used the indelible juice of the san- 
guinaria root-stock as paint for their faces and 
weapons. 

These April woods seem full of white flowers, and 
none is more delicately lovely than the wild dicentra, 
otherwise known by the ugly name of " Dutchman's 
breeches." What a pity that these absurd or vulgar 
names fasten upon some of our daintiest flowers ! 
When the warm south hillsides suddenly are covered 
with the waving plumes of this charming plant, we 
rind it hard to tell which is loveliest — the tassel of 
white, yellow-tipped bloom, or the fine frilled bluish- 
green foliage. These leaves are thrice compound, 
very deeply divided, the edges seeming ruffled, so 
full is the border of the leaf. The whole plant is 
smooth and shining, a certain fineness and frailty 
characterizing every part. Each blossom has two 
tiny scale-like sepals ; the corolla is made up of four 
closed flat petals with yellow tips. The outer petals 
are much larger than the inner two, and swell and 
spread at the tip, ending in deep spurs. The two 
inner petals are shaped like tiny spoons, and close 
over the stamens and pistil. A pretty name given 
in some localities to this flower is " White Hearts," 
from its heart-shaped corolla. 

No wild flower is more universally beloved — per- 
haps the violet might be excepted — than the spring 



80 a8otan$ 

beauty. Strong, abundant, lasting, taking kindly to 
being picked and put into a bouquet ; readily domes- 
ticating itself on our lawns, if it is only treated with 
so much courtesy as allowing its seed pods to ripen 
before the lawn mower goes over them— such a flower 
is our spring beauty. Some botanists refer to this 
plant as a lover of damp woods or brooksides, but it 
seems to love any spot where it may be permitted to 
grow. The leaves are two long, narrow straps, spring- 
ing opposite each other from the base of the stem. A 
number of blossoms grow in the loose cluster, the 
top one opening latest. This flower expands in 
broad sunshine and closes itself under a cloudy sky. 
The calyx has two sepals, the corolla five white 
petals striped with pink, which give the whole flower 
a rosy hue. No one of our wild flowers is a more 
profuse bloomer, none lasts longer, almost none 
arrives earlier to tell us " The flowers appear on the 
earth, the time of the singing birds has come." 



CHAPTER V 

THE BEAUTY OF THE FLOWER 

May 

"And all the meadows wide unrolled, 
Were green and silver, green and gold, 
Where buttercups and daisies spun 
Their shining tissues in the sun." 




Neither age, learning, nor fortune a^ needed to 
enable one to love and admire these gracious chil- 
dren of beauty — the flowers. When the chill winds 
of autumn sound a knell for their departure we have 
a sense of loneliness and loss. As the winter passes 
we long for the days when the blossoms shall come 
again. 

The first tiny white blossom of the star-flower ; the 
first little tasseled bloom on the birch; the first 
adder's tongue, or violet, or broad white salver of the 
mandrake flower; the long, white, plume-like cluster 
of the foam flower; the snowy banners of the dog- 
wood; the gray-white of the brave little plantain- 
leaved everlasting, fill all hearts with delight. 

The aged, little children, invalids, strong men, the 
6 81 



82 J6otan^ 

laborer in the field, the lady in her parlor, all are 
happier and better for the coming of the flowers. 

" For lo, the winter is past ! 
The flowers appear on the earth, 
The time of the singing birds is come." 

We have noted great variety of form and color in 
leaves ; in the flower we find in these respects infi- 
nite diversity. How many children have spent 
hours in vainly searching for two exactly similar 
blades in a clump of striped grass? How many 
more have spent other hours in seeking for two 
pansies exactly like ? 

The life object of the flower is the production of 
seed. All the parts of the flower are in some way 
fitted to further that end. What is the story of the 
flower ? 

The stem and branches having developed a certain 
amount of leafage, may at length put forth blossoms. 
These spring, as leaves do, from the tips or axils of 
the branches. In truth, a flower is a modified branch, 
and all its parts are modified leaves. We will pass 
over this distinction of science, and will consider the 
flower as we popularly think and speak of it, the 
beautiful producer of seeds. 

On most trees the flowers precede the leaves ; there 
is enough sap in the stems for their production, and 




NATURE'S DARLINGS 



Gbe beauts ot tbe jf lower 83 

if they delayed until the leaves spread out they 
would be deprived of sufficient air and light. In the 
maple, elm, oak, birch, willow, and others, the 
flowers come first. In the catalpa, tulip tree, and 
magnolia, which are large-flowered, the leaves come 
first, but the large blossoms appear on the tips of 
the stems, beyond the leaves, and are not interfered 
with. 

On many of our ornamental shrubs, as the red- 
bud, dogwood, Irish quince, and others, the abund- 
ant bloom appears before tbe leaves are conspicuous. 

The folding of the flower in the bud is as wonderful 
and interesting as the folding of the leaf , and should 
be studied in the same manner. 

The placing of flowers upon the stem is also various 
and worthy of close observation. When flowers 
grow in clusters the leaves near them are small, 
modified in form, and known as bracts. These bracts 
frequently appear at the base of the leaf stems of 
flowers, whether placed singly or in pairs. 

Where a number of flowers grow near together 
they are more or less crowded, and are said to grow 
in heads, spikes, clusters, tassels, umbels, catkins, 
bunches, spadix, and so on. 

The cottonwood, clover, and button-bush give 
examples of flowers in heads : also the snow-ball bush 
and globe flower are well-known specimens; the 



84 JSotan^ 

birch and willow show the catkin style. Jack-in-the- 
pulpit exhibits the spadix method. The big-hooded 
pulpit is not the flower — it is a sheathing leaf ; Mr. 
Jack himself is the flower. If you open the pulpit 
you will see that the lower part of the club, called 
Jack, is closely set round with little blossoms. This 
club-formed inflorescence is a spadix. 

If you took a flower head and could pull out the 
axis or cushion upon which the flowers are crowded, 
and make a roll of it, you would have a spike 
growth. The weed called plantain has its flowers in 
a spike. 

The lily-of-the-valley grows in a loose branch or 
raceme; the long stem springs from the folded base 
of the leaf, and upon it the lilies hang on tiny stem- 
lets. The lower ones open first. If you could flatten 
down this raceme to a disc, you would haye flowers 
placed on a flat, circular cushion, the outer ones 
blooming while the central ones are buds. You will 
notice in many flowers that the blossoms do not all 
open at the same time ; the mullein and the yellow 
evening-primrose open the lower blossoms first; they 
are dead and seeds have formed, before the upper 
buds open. 

What we call a dandelion, and a thistle flower, are 
really made up of many little florets growing upon 
a single fleshy cushion, surrounded with crowded 



XTbe $eaut£ of tbe JFlovver 85 

green bracts, which form an involucre, or wrapper. 
Flowers growing in this manner are embraced in 
the great order composite. In such compound 
flowers each floret may be perfect in itself, having its 
calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils. Sometimes the 
outer row of florets has neither stamens nor pistils, 
but has several petals united into a broad strap ; such 
straps make a bright border for the whole compound 
flower. The florets may have stamens only, or pistils 
only. Asters, coreopsis, zinnias, cockscomb, golden- 
rod, chrysanthemums, belong to the composite, with 
a great many other flowers which each student can 
search out for himself. 

One very large family of plants is called umbel- 
lata, because its flower stems all start from one point, 
spreading out something like the wires of an um- 
brella, the flowers opening at a level, instead of in a 
head or spike. The caraway, parsley, wild carrot, 
and parsnip show this very common form of growth. 

A flower is simple when it has its own stemlet, 
whether or not these stemlets are crowded into heads 
or spikes. A flower is compound when many flowera 
are. wrapped in one involucre, and appear like a 
single blossom when they are really many, as the 
sunflower and dandelion. 

The only really needed part of the leaf i< the 
blade, so the only really indispensable parts of the 



86 3Botanfi 

flower are the stamens and pistils. These, held 
together by a little scale, can produce seed, and 
some plants are so economical that they reduce their 
flowers to this footing. 

Many trees and nearly all the grains and grasses 
have this inconspicuous fashion of blossom. They 
seem content to be taken on their merits, rather than 
upon appearance. If such flowers have any color 
it is in the stamens and pistils. Grass in blossom is 
very beautiful ; the stamens and pistils are red, yel- 
low, pink, purple, hanging loosely on the stem like a 
gauze decoration, with an undertone or ground of 
pale green bracts. 

Only for a day or two can this simple and ex- 
quisite bloom be seen, for few things are so evanescent. 
" As brief as bloom upon grass," is proverbial — 

"For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, 
But it withereth the grass, 
And the flowers thereof falleth, 
And the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. ,, 

" Grace of the fashion of it " — that describes the grass 
bloom exactly. 

Wnat is called a perfect flower we will examine in 
the common buttercup of the fields. At the top of 
the stem we find a cup or calyx of five narrow sepa- 
rate green leaves, called sepals ; these form the outer 



Gbe JBeautg of tbe fflower 87 

wrapping of the bud, and maintain and protect the 
more delicate inner parts of the flayer. Within the 
calyx is the corolla — five glossy, yellow, roundish 
petals, set in a circle; within this we have another 
ring of downy, bright-yellow stamens, and still within 
these, protected by all the others, certain yellow 
pistils, fewer and firmer in texture than the stamens. 
All these four rings of parts are placed upon the 
fleshy, enlarged top of the stem, which is called the 
receptacle. The yellow of this flower is very yellow, 
the stem and leaves are very green. The stem and 
leaves of our buttercups are hairy ; the whole plant 
is provided with a sharp, stinging juice. 

There is a great variety in the setting of these 
parts of the flower. In some flowers the parts all 
adhere to the calyx ; in some the ovary or lower 
part of the pistil is below, or inferior to the rest of 
the flower, as in the rose, where we find the rounded 
button of seed box below the spreading green sepals. 
In the lily this ovary is free from the other parts, 
and is superior to them, standing within and above 
the rest. 

The color of the calyx is usually green, and its 
first office is to maintain and protect more valuable 
organs. When the corolla is absenl the calyx fre- 
quently changes its color, and adds to its 1'unctions, 
becoming bright-hued and serving to attract insects to 



88 JSotang 

the flower. The purpose of this bidding for insect 
visitors will be explained in Chapter VII. 

The corolla is composed of two parts, banner and 
claw. The banner is the wide part; the claw holds 
fast to the receptacle. The stamen consists of two 
parts, the filament and anther. The filament is the 
stem part of the stamen ; it may be long, short, or 
wanting altogether. The anther is a little box, 
usually oblong, composed of two lobes and opening 
in the centre. Within the anther grows a fine yellow 
dust called pollen. Sometimes the pollen is not 
yellow but dark-brown or reddish. When the pollen 
is ripe the anther opens and the pollen flies out. 
Pollen grains can only be examined with a micro- 
scope. We shall find that each grain is a little sac, 
full of liquid, in which is held a constantly moving 
atom ; this atom is the life point of the flower. 

The pistil has three parts. At the base is a little 
box called the ovary ; then comes the style, a hollow 
tube bearing on its top the stigma, a soft, sticky 
cushion. When there is no style the stigma is fixed 
directly upon the ovary. The ovary is full of little 
ovules or egglets that will presently become seeds. 
These ovules cannot develop into seeds unless the 
pollen reaches them. 

The grains of pollen must first reach the sticky 
surface of the stigma; being held fast there, they 



Gbe JBeautE of the fflovver 89 

sprout, as seeds in soil, and send long threads down 
through the hollow style into the ovary. These 
threads are hollow also, and through them the 
quivering life atoms reach the ovules, which at once 
receive power to grow into true seeds. The whole 
plant then sets itself to protect and nourish the 
seeds. The germ box or capsule hardens its fabric, 
the sap brings the choicest food, and the growing 
seed develops all those parts which we noticed in 
the sprouting of the seedling — case, cotyledons, albu- 
men-food, tiny plant embryo. 

The buttercup, as we have seen, is made up of 
four circles, each composed of several distinct parts. 
A flower with several petals is called polypetalous. 
Other flowers have but one petal; they are styled 
monopetalous.* In fact, in such one-petaled flowers 
a number of petals have simply grown together. 
Let us take a morning-glory as an example. Pull 
off the calyx ; it comes off as a whole, but is cleft 
half way down into five lobes, showing that it is 
truly composed of five united sepals. Now pull the 
corolla from another calyx cup ; it comes as a whole, 
and is not cleft as the calyx is, but it has five stripes, 
and at each stripe the margin has a little point, and 

* Gamopetalous and gamosepalous are newer and better 
terms. 



90 totalis 

we can make out very plainly that here are five 
prettily-pointed petals united into one, with a long 
tube made of the claws, and a beautiful wide margin 
made of the banners. Four-o'clock, stramonium. 
Canterbury-bells, phlox, and many other flowers 
have these one-petaled corollas. Such corollas differ 
greatly in shape, owing to the length and diameter 
of the tube and margin. 

The snap-dragon shows a pretty variety of a one- 
petaled corolla, where the margin is drawn together 
into a mouth. The fox-glove, with its inflated throat 
and narrowed margin, is another beauty ; and the 
lady's-slipper, with its yellow or purple bags, hung 
under the long, wavy calyx sepals, is one of the most 
beautiful of flowers. 

In polypetalous corollas we have the rich splen- 
dors of roses, from single to the fullest double, where 
cultivation has changed all the stamens and pistils 
into petals. The polypetalous tribe give us also the 
lovely perfume-filled chalices of the lilies ; the peas, 
with their many-colored banners ; the charming vio- 
lets, with their spurred petals ; the columbine, with 
its horns of plenty. 

Color of some kind is one of the distinguishing 
features of blossoms. 

Fragrance is another marked characteristic of 
plants, and is chiefly in the flower. There are plenty 



Gbe JBeautg of tbe fflovver 91 

of scentless plants, yet the majority are full of per- 
fume. Some few, as the elegant crown imperial, 
have a very disagreeable smell. Fragrance in plants 
comes from certain oils or resins laid up in different 
parts of the plant, whether in the leaves, bark, wood, 
fruit, seeds, or blossoms. 

Some flowers have especial glands or develop- 
ments called nectaries, in which honey is laid up for 
insect guests. All children have sucked the honey 
from the lower parts of the long tubes of the honey- 
suckle, or clover, or from the spur of the violet. 

Fragrance and nectar are especially abundant 
about the time of the ripening of the pollen. After 
the anthers have shed all their pollen the flower be- 
gins to fade, and then the fragrance loses its delicate 
sweetness, becomes heavy and sickly, or positively 
unpleasant. At this time also the nectar dries away, 
unless it has all been previously drunk up by 
insects. 

A perfect or symmetrical flower is one having all 
its parts evenly placed and in equal number in each 
set of organs. For example, the flax flower is a per- 
fect, symmetrical flower, with five sepals, five petals, 
five stamens, five pistils. The trillium or bath flower 
is divided into threes : three sepals, three petals, even 
three sides to the capsule, and three lobes on each 
leaf. 



92 aSotanE 

From snow to snow, from crocus to chrysanthe- 
mum, w r e have about us our flower guests. 

" Consider the lilies, how they grow ; they toil not, 
neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, That 
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these." 

To a close observer every part of the flower has a 
singular interest and beauty, and is a fascinating 
study. We said of stamens that the anther or pollen 
box was generally oblong, yellow, and opening in 
the centre. This describes the most common or typal 
form of anther, but in truth, anthers are almost as 
varied as blossoms in form and method of opening, 
or dehiscence ; the color also varies from yellow to 
orange, brown, dark purple, brownish red, and 
almost black. There are flowers where the corollas 
are wanting or inconspicuous, and the long tassel of 
brightly-colored stamens constitutes the chief claim 
to beauty. Sometimes the stamen is like a little 
leaf, with dots of pollen sacs scattered over its sur- 
face, as in the cycads. The long filament may hold 
the anther balanced at the centre on its slender tip, 
the whole appearing so frail that even a breath 
might destroy it, yet holding its own against wind 
and storm until the pollen is ripened and some 
insect pollen-bearer comes brushing heavily against 
it, in its velvet coat. Again, the erect filament 



Zbc JScaut^ of tbe jflower 93 

resembles the shaft of an arrow holding on its top a 
two-lob eel anther like an arrow-heacl. These lobes 
when ripe open the entire length of the side, releas- 
ing the pollen. There are flowers having very long 
stamen filaments, which are doubled over in a loop 
upon themselves, as one might bend a strip of whale- 
bone, holding the ends together. "When the anthers 
are ripened these long filaments suddenly snap out 
straight, as if one released one end of the strip of 
whalebone. The result of this sudden snap of the 
filament is to scatter the ripened pollen abroad or 
shower with it the insect whose intrusive touch 
released it. 

It has been noted that all parts of the flower are 
really modified leaves ; thus the stamen is a pollen- 
bearing leaf, and as the pollen is of immense interest 
to the plant this stamen is a leaf in a high state of 
usefulness. Therefore when stamens begin to revert 
to the leaf form, by changing themselves into petals, 
this process is called by science " degeneration." Per- 
haps no flower will give us as interesting instances 
of the stamen harking back to the petal shape, as 
the white water lily. This flower has a large number 
of brilliant golden stamens with short filaments and 
large anthers, seated in the snowy fragrant heart of 
the corolla,, and gently rocked in it by the water as 
in a beautiful boat. One might think the stamens 



94 J3otanE 

were well enough off, and that discontent could not 
enter so rare a palace of* delight, However, close 
examination will, perhaps, show us a series of stamens 
leaving their high estate, their golden usefulness, to 
become ]3etals ; not only so, but when degeneration 
begins there is no knowing where it will end, and 
back of the white petals these stamens on the clown 
grade go, to turn into the green pink-tinted sepals. 
Here is a calyx sepal, one edge curled over, thicker 
than the others, yellowish still ; what is this? Surely 
here is a stamen degenerate, the short filament and 
the golden anther expanded and changed broadly 
and coarsely into a sepal nearly like the other sepals. 
Now search the white corolla segments, and here is 
one along one margin of which we plainly trace half 
of a filament and half of an anther, the other halves 
having bleached and widened into a petal ; here is a 
narrower petal showing the stamen formation more 
fully ; here is a stamen with its filament widened 
and whitened, and it3 anther paled and shrunken, 
well on its way to petaldom ; and here are others less 
and less modified, until we have the whole series 
back to normal. Well, and what of that ? Perhaps 
in the very long ago a water lily was but a receptacle 
full of stamens and pistil, and a scale or two, to pre- 
vent the intrusion of water ; then these stamens took 
to changing and changing, becoming at last the 



Gbe JBeaut^ of tbe Jflower 95 

numerous petals, snowy white, to attract insect 
guests ; fragrant, also, to attract them ; green-sepaled 
to preserve the life and beauty of the flower from the 
water until the ovules were fertilized, and this so- 
called process of degeneration has given us the large, 
pure, sweet white water lily. Was it, all things con- 
sidered, really a degeneration ? 

Roses show us this change of stamens to petals. 
The normal rose has five large petals, braced by five 
strong, small, green sepals united over the ovary, and 
in the centre of this beauteous whorl numerous 
stamens. Now among the double roses we often find 
bent petals, with a more or less well-defined stamen 
upon one edge. Such developments are not freaks 
or sports of nature ; they are the stages of a process. 
The pollen is so fine a dust that its several grains 
have no particular definition to the naked eye — it is 
merely yellow, brown, black, reddish, or purple dust, 
no more. Put the ripened stamen under a powerful 
microscope, and we are whirled off as by enchant- 
ment into fairy-land ; never had royal princess such 
necklace or tiara, never had queen such crown, never 
wore any hand such jewels as are here displayed. 
What do we see here? Woven and chiseled gold; 
pearls, diamonds, rubies, all instinct with life, Hash- 
ing, glowing, palpitating, like water in a vase; here 
are the crown jewels, treasured up in the sacred 



96 ^5otan^ 

centre of the flower, jewels which mortals seldom see, 
or of which few even suspect the existence. 

Crown jewels have always been temptations to 
daring robbers, and the object of many deep-laid 
plans of theft; the plant's crown jewels are subject 
to the same dangers. How many predatory ants 
and roving beetles or wasps make daring raids upon 
the flower, and plunder the pollen, devouring it, 
carrying it off in their intrusive coats to waste it 
upon leaves and stalks as they ramble on their way. 
The bees and the butterflies are not freebooters ; the 
plant puts her jewel treasures in their keeping to 
pledge for large returns, or to secure strong allies and 
increase of state. 

In the month of May flowers crowd upon us in 
numbers so great that we are at a loss for time to 
study them. Even if April has been cold the match- 
less arbutus has found time to bloom above last 
year's protecting leaves, and has passed away, leaving 
only a memory of its fragrance and rosy beauty. 
The dandelions — jolly, popular, child-beloved gold 
of the spring — have bloomed, and in May the grass is 
covered with their delicate clocks ; we still in early 
May find the oxalis almost making a carpet for 
pasture lands or sunny hillsides. When the oxalis 
grows in damp shade its flowers and leaves are larger 
and of a deeper color, but the blossoms are fewer. 



XLbc ffieautE of tbe jflovver 97 

The leaf of the oxalis is three-divided, like the 
coarser leaf of the clover. Some hold the tradition 
that it was the oxalis and not the shamrock leaf 
which good St. Patrick took to prove the possibility 
of Trinity — one in three. Some think that really 
the oxalis and not the clover was ttie shamrock of 
the ancient Irish. 

In the southern parts of Europe the oxalis blooms 
very early, soon after Easter, and is called the halle- 
lujah flower, from the anthems sung in churches at 
that time. 

The corolla of the oxalis has five petals, the claws 
forming a tube, the shorter calyx has five sepals ; 
each flower grows solitary on a stalk. The stamens 
are ten, and the single pistil has five styles, showing 
that here are really five pistils united in growth. 
The golden oxalis is common in some parts of the 
country, the rose-colored oxalis in others ; the rose- 
colored oxalis has almost white individuals, and the 
blossoms are usually larger than those of the yellow 
variety. As the season advances the plants continue 
to bloom, but the flower is constantly smaller. The 
oxalis is one of the flowers which sleeps at night, 
rolling up its corolla and folding its leave-. 

May brings us an abundance of wild violets ; the 
blue violets, and the beautiful tri-colored pansiea 
come in April, but the blue violets linger, growing 
7 



98 SSotang 

larger and richer, while their cousins, the dainty 
white, and the branching yellow violets, appear in 
the cool, damp woods. These wild violets are scent- 
less, except for the spicy " woods odor" that seems to 
hang about all wild flowers. 

A much humbler flower than the violet greets us 
on the roadsides — the bright yellow cinquefoil, its 
vine, leaves, and blossom bearing resemblance to the 
strawberry, so that country people call them " yel- 
low-flowered strawberries." Common as the cinque- 
foil is, it belongs to a noble, even royal family amorg 
flowers — the rose; it is "a poor cousin " of the garden's 
queen. 



CHAPTER VI 

Solomon's rivals 

June 

" The purple heath and golden broom 
On many mountains catch the gale ; 
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume, 
The violet in the vale." 

June is the month of flowers, as May is of leaves ; 
it is also the month of richest and most varied colors. 
The leaves are in their prime, and the flowers are in 
their greatest luxuriance. Green is the chief color 
in the plant world. It is so constantly the color of 
leaves that " green as a leaf " and " leaf-green " are 
common expressions. 

Many plants have parti-colored foliage, but in com- 
parison with the whole they are few, and when we 
ask what is the usual color of leaves, stems, bracts, 
tendrils, or calyx, " green " is a fair answer. 

Next to green, yellow is the most common color. 
This is the chief color of stamens and pistils ; it is 
also the chief color of spring flowers, though white 
blossoms also abound. When the warmth and glow 

99 



100 :fBotartE 

of the sunshine returns to us, many flowers seem to 
assume the liverj^ of the sun ; flecks and streaks of 
sunshine gleam at us from hundreds of nooks and 
corners. The bluebird and the jay come to us, decked 
in the clear blue of the spring sky, but the spring 
flowers outbid them a hundred to one in choosing 
the " class color " of the season. 

The very thought of spring is associated with dan- 
delions, buttercups, hawksweed, mustard, cinquefoil, 
primroses, cowslips, marsh marigolds, adders-tongue, 
and a hundred other yellow beauties, from the incon- 
spicuous parsnip and wild radish to the sunny 
splendor of the meadow lily and ladyVslipper. 

In Alaska the flowers are nearly all yellow or 
white ; blue and pink blossoms are exceptions. 

After yellow, white is the most frequent color, and 
we recall a succession of blossoms, from little white 
chick-weed through star-flower and trillium, bunch- 
berry and bell-wort, up to the great, white, fragrant 
lilies. Next in order of abundance comes blue, then 
pink, purple, red, and, least seen of all, that rich 
scarlet that graces the cardinal flower and the 
salvia — 

" In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white, 
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery." 

Autumn is the season of the most brilliant colors, 



*%.' 



V JR r™ mil W# «n Wr ' a 



flipfl^fF 



SUMMER XOOX 



Solomon's IRivals 101 

for then come the changed forest leaves and the 
gorgeous hosts of dahlias, asters, and chrysanthe- 
mums. 

Insects seem to have preferences for special colors. 
Sir John Lubbock proved, to his own satisfaction at 
least, that bees prefer blue, flies dull yellow or flesh- 
color, moths white or lemon-yellow. 

The color in plants is not confined to leaves and 
blossoms. It is spread in stems, wood, bracts. We 
have only to look into a seedsman's window to see 
green, yellow, brown, white, pink, red, purple, 
lavished upon seeds. Possibly the next window will 
be that of a fruit store, and what can outvie the gold 
of oranges and lemons, the pink of peaches, the 
purple of grapes and plums, the mingled colors of 
melons and apples, the deep glow of pomegranates, 
the vivid ruby of currants and cherries ? 

Whoever called roots " dull brown things v has 
not looked well at beets, carrots, turnips, the snowy 
white, the orange, and red roots laid bare in forest or 
garden by a little digging. 

In a study of plant colors let us begin witli green. 
The green matter in the leaf ia a soft pulp. comp< >sed 
of cells, and i.< culled chlorophyl, or leaf-green : leaf- 
i let ua call it. This ia a very important sub- 
Btance, not only in preparing plant-food, but in puri- 
fying and oxygenating the atmosphere. 



102 JBotanvj 

Much as leaf-green has been studied, no one can 
tell exactly of what it is made or how it performs its 
work. We only know that the work is very well 
done; food and fresh air come freely to us from 
these busy cells, the workshop of the leaf-green. 

A pale yellow pulp called etiolin is supposed to 
precede the leaf-green. This sickly yellow is the 
tint of most leaves in the bud, of the first unfolding 
of cotyledons, and of plants grown in darkness. If 
green plants are put into a dark, chilly place, their 
leaf -green returns to the dull etiolin. 

The change made in such leaves by exposure to 
light and warmth is very rapid. Take a potato 
vine ; let it sprout in a cellar. It reaches out toward 
the place where there is light, even if that comes but 
from some little chink. Toward that light the pale 
vine grows, no matter how it has to twist and turn 
to do so. Let in stronger light somewhere, and very 
soon it has changed its direction. 

A vine thus grown in darkness will be nearly 
white, and also soft and watery. Place it in the sun- 
shine ; in a few hours it will be green ; in a few days 
dark green and firm of substance. A very few hours 
will change the etiolin to full green, and the rapidity 
of the change is in proportion to the sunlight given. 
From simple experiments we see that the pale 
etiolin, which is formed chiefly from starch, is 



Solomon's IRtvals 103 

the predecessor of the leaf-green, and changes to 
leaf-green by light and warmth. To maintain this 
leaf-green the plant must have plenty of carbonic 
acid gas, and but little oxygen. 

Here is another curious fact : When leaf-green is 
taken from the leaf and compressed and freed as far 
as possible from other substances by chemical treat- 
ment, if it is made into a thick layer and looked at 
upon the surface, it appears of a deep lake reel. Make 
the layer thin and look through it, and it is of a rich 
green. 

A plant naturally having green leaves cannot pre- 
pare proper food stuff without leaf-green. If it is 
robbed of this chlorophyl by darkness and cold, no 
food will be prepared in the leaves, and the plant 
will soon starve to death under the insufficient feed- 
ing of the root. 

Some ferns have been known to take on leaf-green 
if they had plenty of warmth while in darkness. 
This suggests that the change from etiolin to chlo- 
rophyl is in part a cooking process. In plants 
where leaves and stems are by nature gayly colon d, 
the work of the leaf-green is performed by the soft, 
brightly-colored pulp which takes its place. 

When plants become parasitic and suck oui of 
other plants the leaf-prepared plant-food, they cease 
to use their own leaves, and these Leaves turn into 



104 



ffiotans 



colored bracts. The beech-drops, or Indian-pipes, 
are parasitic on roots, and become entirely waxen 
white or pale yellow. The dodder changes its green 
stem to red, and divests itself of leaves entirely. The 
mistletoe keeps its green leaves because it is not en- 
tirely parasitic, but continues to manufacture plant- 
food for itself * 

Trees that shed their leaves in autumn are called 
deciduous. Such trees, before losing their foliage, 
are very gorgeous, the green of the leaves changing 
to yellow, purple, scarlet, orange, bronze brown. 
This change is produced chiefly by the withdrawing 
of green color, because the clogged cells are no longer 
taking in carbon or discharging oxygen. The excess 
of oxygen now changes the failing leaf-green itself to 
some gay color, or aids other colors which have lam 
hidden to gain strength and assert themselves, appear- 
in- in glory in place of the vanished chlorophyl. _ 

lion- with leaf-green in the plant other colors he, 
even in stems and leaves, ready to appear whenever 
room is made for them by the departing green, and 
strength is added to them by oxygen. In the vari- 
colored foliage, for some reason peculiar to the par- 
ticular plant, the chlorophyl politely admits a pro- 
portion of other colors to share its reign. 

*This subject will be discussed in a future chapter. 



Solomon's IRtvate 105 

This brings us to the consideration of chromule, 
which is the name given in general to all colors except 
green in the plant. These colors are more or less- 
present always. In early spring the young leaves of 
the oak are pink and bronze ; those of the birch are 
purple ; other trees show in their fresh leafage scarlet 
and yellow, almost as ga}^ as autumn dyes. 

The petals of the flower, however, assert their 
claim to the chromule, and appear in the most 
brilliant colors, which are stored up in the tissues. 
All the hues of the rainbow, and all the shades 
produced by the mingling of these, belong to 
corollas. 

"The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, 
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes." 

Here we stand before some of nature's deepest 
mysteries and most marvelous chemistry. Out of 
the same soil — light, air, moisture, heat — the cardinal 
flower draws its flaming scarlet, and the violet its 
heavenly blue ; the lily secures its cup of pearl in 
the same laboratory from apparently the same con- 
ditions that gave the golden rod its yellow plume. 
Look at a tiger lily ; it is orange, spotted with brown ; 
here is a rose streaked red, white, pink ; here is a 
morning-glory painted in white, rose, blue, purple; 
behold this painted cup, the sharpest contrasts of 



10 6 3Botam> 

green, yellow, scarlet— yet not one shade in all these 
intrudes upon another. Bryant says 

"Scarlet tufts 
Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire ; 
The wanderers of the prairie know them well, 
And call the brilliant flower the painted cup." 

Oddly enough, in this flower the vivid red is in 
leaves or bracts, clustered among the pale yellow 

bloom. 

Many children have used the petals of flowers as 
paints." rinding in them abundant deeply-dyed juice. 
The three "blue petals of the spider-plant, the pink of 
rose petals, the yellow of the orange or tiger lily, the 
abundant crimson of poke or alder berries, have 
painted many a child's work of pictorial art. 

From this color in plants, commerce obtains valu- 
able and lasting dyes-as from the indigo, oak, 
madder, saffron. 

Although light seems to have such influence on 
the production of color in plants, we find many 
plants deeply green, or gaudily colored, that grow 
where there is little or no light. Sea-weeds of in- 
tense green, or painted as gayly as parrots, come from 
depths under water where the light must have been 

very dim. . 

The most vivid colors are often found in the 



Solomon's IRivala 107 

mold in jars of preserves that have been kept en- 
tirely in the dark. This mold is a vegetable 
growth. 

In the spring one may notice early in the morning 
a bed of chickory in bloom ; it is of a clear, exquisite 
blue ; by ten o'clock ttue blue will be very pale, by 
twelve the flowers are white, by one they are all 
folded up, to open next day as richly blue as ever. 
The sun plays such tricks on blue cotton cloth. 
Where it is exposed to the sun the blue vanishes, and 
when the cloth has been put away in darkness the 
fled color returns. Other flowers besides chickory 
grow pale with excess of light, just as some grow 
pale from darkness. The study of color in the 
plant world affords opportunity for interesting ex- 
periments. 

" Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these I" How this rings in our minds when we see 
the Summer Color Exposition ! Yet June cannot be 
to us a mere color study in general, for her prodi- 
gality of individual blossoms calls us to a closer in- 
vestigation of particular or peculiar plants. 

Bryant calls June "flowery June." Coleridge 
calls the month "leafy June" — it might also be 
called fragrant June, for it scorns the natal month of 
the most fragrant flowers. One may notice some- 
times in Scotland, such a rich, almost overwhelming 



108 JBotatiE 

fragrance on a ripple of wind that one will stop to 
consider its origin. The source is not far to seek ; 
it is a bean-field in full blossom, and it recalls what 
Isaac said of his favorite son, Esau, " The smell 
of my son is as the smell of a field that God hath 
blessed." No doubt that genial freebooter had taken 
toll of many a passing caravan, bearing myrrh, aloes, 
balm, and cassia into Egypt, and therewith had made 
his goodly garments fragrant. 

Another very common and fragrant family of 
June blooming plants is the trefoil or clover family. 
A field of the common red clover in full bloom will 
rival in richness of perfume the famous Scotch bean- 
field. The clover field is a blaze of beauty — full, 
round, rosy heads spread under the sunshine a cloth 
not of gold, but of a purplish pink, strong, healthy 
plants these, full of suggestions of vigor. Across this 
field boom thousands of great humble bees, and here 
we are reminded that the humble bee is the especial 
partner of the red clover, carrying its pollen and paid 
by the honey from its deep cups. The red clover is 
not a native flower in America. It was introduced 
here, as in Australia, from England, but seems to 
have taken a special hold on the hearts of the 
people, and upon the soil as well. 

"What airs outblown from ferny dells 
Of clover bloom and sweet-briar smells," 



Solomon's IRivals 109 

QSLjs Whittier, the poet of the home and of country- 
side. Another sings : 

" Crimson clover I discover 
By the garden gate." 

Each head of red clover is composed of hundreds 
of little florets, tube-shaped, each with its own tiny 
calyx, each with its nectary honey full and deeply 
hidden, each pouring its portion of perfume upon 
the warm June air. 

Another clover becoming naturalized, a stranger 
from afar, is the crimson or Hungarian clover. The 
head of blossoms is not round, but long, shaped like 
the first joint of a forefinger. The color is a rich, 
vivid crimson, or blood red, from which it receives 
its name, Trifolium incarnatum. Tins is the clover 
so provided with tough hairs that it has proved 
injurious to cattle. 

An entire contrast to the large and showy Hun- 
garian clover is the modest, low-growing, dainty, 
white clover, its fragrance equally delicious, but 
more subtle and delicate. The white clover has 
a short, simple stem, its leaves are much smaller 
than those of the red clover, and the plant hugs the 
ground, having a running habit. It is so tenacious 
of existence and such a close grower thai where it 
once possesses the Boil it is capable of crowding out 



110 SSotang 

the most noxious weeds, even the much detested 
plantain, terror of the lovers of handsome lawns and 
well-kept roadsides. Among these white clover will 
be found heads of a larger growth, more rounded 
and of a pure flesh tint. The head of white clover 
is somewhat flattened, is loose, and has a greenish 
tint under its whiteness, because the little green 
calyx of each tube is partly seen. 

Frequent on dry, sandy roadsides, especially by 
railroad beds, is the little yellow hop clover, often 
not recognized by the casual observer as a clover at 
all. The poor soil which it most affects checks its 
growth, and it is a slim, stunted herb, its foliage pale 
green, with leaflets more slender than those of other 
trefoils. When the seed has ripened, the small, long, 
downy heads look oddly like the catkins of the pussy 
willows. 

Leaving the roadsides and the clover bloom and 
entering some long undisturbed " wood lot," or pass- 
ing near thick undergrowth beside some little brook, 
a rich, special fragrance greets us, more delicious 
than any spicy waft from Araby the blest. It is 
lavishly poured upon the air by the inconspicuous 
green blossoms of the wild grape ; once we meet a 
breeze heavy with this exquisite odor it is never for- 
gotten, and the sensitive nostril is likely to try all 
other perfumes by that one unattainable standard. 



Solomon's U?i\?al$ 111 

Lines previously quoted link the clover and the 
sweec-briar; here we consider that June marshals in 
the troops of roses, among the choicest of its fragrant 
bands — " sweet as a rose " has passed into a proverb. 
The lilies also are June flowers ; the golden lily, the 
stately white lily, each one pouring from its chalice 
a wealth of sweetness, each one fair enough to be the 
long-sought Holy Grail. With the roses and lilies 
come the honeysuckle tribe, and all together vindi- 
cate the claim of June as the especial month of 
fragrance. 

There are some of the children of June which find 
their " excuse for being " not at all in their fragrance, 
but in their singular beauty, and of these the laurel 
stands pre-eminent. No one who has climbed the 
hills near Gettysburg when the laurel is in full 
bloom, flushing the hills from base to crown with a 
deep rosy glow, can fail to accord the mountain 
laurel the palm of beauty. Its pink tint is the most 
exquisite tone of pink that nature ever produced ; its 
buds, each one like a choicely wrought jewel-box, 
with a deeply-fluted lid, are the most beautiful buds 
that could be contrived — the open blossom a more 
delicate pink than the buds, and given a lace-like 
appearance by the long filaments of the ten stamen-, 
is indeed a matchless dower, while nothing in the 
marvelous cross fertilization of orchids can surpass 



112 JBotatiE 

the ingenious contrivance of these flowers to secure 
also their cross fertilization. The corolla is wheel- 
shaped, with five lobes ; each of these lobes has two 
depressions ; in each of these ten depressions of the 
corolla lies one of the ten stamens, its long filament 
recurved and its anther, the true jewel of this jewel- 
box, carefully lodged in the tiny pink niche which 
exactly fits it. So firmly are these anthers held 
back that the filament is arched in a little bow above 
the surface of the petals. When the anthers have 
ripened their pollen they are large for their resting- 
place, and their hold upon it is loosened, but they 
retain their position from habit, until some insect, 
lured bj r the pink chalice, alights upon it, or passing 
bee or butterfly brushes it with fleet wing. Then, 
in a second, all these little resorts snap back, up 
springs each stamen with violence, the anthers are 
jerked from their niches, the pollen flies out in such 
a golden shower as fell over Danae, the destiny of 
the blossom is accomplished, its stigma has received 
from the body of its insect visitor the pollen of some 
other laurel bush, and this laurel has sent its own 
contingent to blossoms far away. Happy, indeed, 
was the Swiss Peter Kalm, the assistant of Linmeus, 
to have his name immortalized by this lovely plant, 
the mountain, or wide-leaved Kalmia. 

Near the seacoast we find a tiny pattern of this 



Solomon's 1Ri\>ate 113 

splendid laurel in a shrub scarcely a foot high, bear- 
ing leaves and flowers dwarfed in proportion, the 
blossoms of the same shape, but less lovely coloring 
than those of the mountain laurel — the sheep-laurel, 
supposed to be very poisonous to flocks and herds. 
When the mountain laurel grows in the partial shade 
its flowers are of a paler pink than when they receive 
the full largess of the sun. When a stray bush re- 
treats fairly into the cool shadows of thick woods, 
the flowers are fewer, larger, and of a pearly white. 

A near cousin of the laurel is the pink azalea, with 
large, almost white and richly fragrant flowers. This 
shrub frequents wet lands, near which grow large 
trees that yield them shade from too powerful 
sunshine. The azalea, or wild swamp honeysuckle, 
blooms earlier than the laurel, and a single bush 
crowded with bloom will send its fragrance abroad 
for a mile or more. The peculiarity of this odor is 
that at a distance, borne on the wind, it is delicious ; 
near by there is a certain deathly heaviness about it. 
Emerson finds in a cousin of the azalea and the 
laurel "a rival of the rose. 1 ' That rhodora was the 
famous plant which taught the poet that "beauty is 
its own excuse for being." 

The elder sister of this beauteous rhodora, the 
greater rhododendron, is. Like the laurel, a mountain 
lover. The flower stalks of this plant are particu- 
8 



114 JBotanfi 

larly viscous or sticky, a contrivance to keep crawl- 
ing creatures of the ant kind away from its stamens. 
The single pistil is much longer than the stamens, 
and is somewhat recurved. The corolla is slightly 
bell-shaped, and when a bee, dusted with pollen from 
a flower previously visited enters the corolla after 
honey, the pistil cannot fail to brush his coat, and 
collect the pollen upon its sticky style. Then the 
stamens are reached, and a fresh load of pollen dusts 
the bee's coat ; this pollen from its own flower the 
style does not gather, for its sticky surface is already 
covered with yellow powder. 



CHAPTER VII 



PLANT PARTNERSHIPS 



July 

"My trees are full of songs, and flowers, and fruit, 
Their branches spread a city to the air." 

u While the bee with cowslip bloom was wrestling." 

The production of seed is the chief object of plant 
life. Upon this depends the continuance of the vege- 
table world, and therefore of all animal existence. 
From the elephant to the mouse, from the whale to 
the minnow, from the eagle to the tomtit, life is con- 
ditioned upon the constant return of " the herb- 
bearing fruit whose seed is in itself. 7 ' 

In every minute particular the flower is con- 
structed to assure the production of sound seed. 
The first form of this seed is the tiny ovule in the 
germ. Ovules cannot grow into seeds, unless they 
are reached and fertilized by the pollen, which must 
arrive at them by the way of the stigma. 

We owe much to those careful students who have, 
by close observation and careful experiments, found 

115 



116 38otan£ 

out for us the facts that concern the fertilization of 
the ovules. What are these facts? 

I. The pollen of the stamen must reach the ovules 
through the stigma of the pistil. 

II. The most vigorous and perfect seed is secured 
when the pollen from one flower is conveyed to the 
pistil of some other flower, rather than to its own 
pistils. The ovules become better seed if they are 
fertilized from blossoms borne on a different root. 

III. Nature has many curious contrivances to 
prevent pollen from reaching pistils contained in 
the same corolla as the anthers from which it came. 
For instance, the anthers and stigma in some flowers 
are so situated that the pollen cannot pass from one 
to another; in many other cases the stamens and 
pistils do not ripen in the same flower at the same 
time. 

IV. The most wonderful arrangements have been 
made to secure the conveyance of pollen to distant 
blossoms. 

V. Unless pollen is conveyed to plants of the same 
kind as that producing the pollen, seed will not be 
fertilized. Lily pollen cannot fertilize the ovules of 
roses ; buttercup pollen is wasted orw dandelions. 

.VI. The animal world, which is maintained by 
the vegetable world, must provide the carriers for a 
large part of this pollen, for the flowers are root-fast. 



flMant partnersbips 117 

VII. This carrying is not to depend upon the 
good-will or intention of the carriers, but must be 
a necessary happening of their own existences. 

Let us see how all this is secured. 

The pollen of flowers is a most fine, delicate dust. 
It must be conveyed without injury in the most 
accurate manner. Many flowers are exceedingly 
high up, as on climbing vines, or growing on tree- 
tops, peaks, or house-tops. Many other plants are 
very low down, lying close to the ground, as the 
bluets, chickweed, arbutus, partridge-berry, and 
others. A large number of plants are in positions 
inaccessible to man or the larger animals. 

Man excepted, the larger animals seem generally 
to have a destructive mission to plants, devouring, 
breaking, or trampling down. Men themselves are 
often ruthless destroyers of beautiful plants, and 
seem generally to care for and conserve only what 
concerns human convenience. 

Here, then, we have the problem of plants fixed 
in their places, needing carriers for their pollen to 
distant plants of their own kineL, at the exact period 
of maturity. The carriers must be able to go high 
or low, into all manner of difficult localities; they 
must be delicately made, so that they will not injure 
the plants which they vi&it, capable of carrying the 
frail pollen grains unharmed, and they must have 



118 JSotan^ 

some object of their own in these visitations, which 
shall infallibly secure their doing of the work re- 
quired. Finally, let us remember that the pollen of 
flowers is but seldom spread where it is easy to 
secure it. The buttercup lavishly expends a golden 
saucer of pollen ; the lily has a wide-open door, near 
which hang the anthers, like so many ready bells. 
On the other hand, how long and narrow are the 
throats of morning-glories and honeysuckles ; how 
tiny are the tubes of mint, thyme, and clover ; how 
fast-closed is the mouth of the snapdragon; how 
narrow the fox-glove's throat. Pollen-carriers must 
be able to secure the dust so jealously kept, and 
must be afforded a reward for their trouble. 

What form of animal life meets all these condi- 
tions ? But one. The insect, The insect is gener- 
ally light and delicate in structure, active, winged ; 
its life is conterminous with that of the flowers; 
they are spring and summer guests. The slender 
shape and the long, slim mouth organs of the insect 
can penetrate and gently force open flower tubes 
and the fast-shut lips of corollas ; the velvet coats 
and fine waving antennre will receive and carry un- 
injured the precious dust, and the insect habit of 
constant roaming from bloom to bloom assures the 
accomplishment of its important errand. 

Not all insects, but a few widely distributed 



plant partnetsbtps 119 

families, are chosen partners of the flowers ; these are 
the various tribes of bees, moths, and butterflies, 
with some help from a few others. 

" Nothing for nothing " seems to be a law in nature. 
What does the flower offer to the insect for its 
services as pollen distributor ? Honey, which is the 
chief food of flying insects, also wax, and pollen for 
its private use at home. The miller, we know 
takes toll from the flour he grinds. 

To secure insect visitants the flower provides in its 
nectaries honey; almost all flowers secrete some 
dainty juices. As shopkeepers set up signs to inform 
the public of their wares, so the flowers hang forth 
signs ; these are the brilliant corollas, or parts highly 
colored which do the office of corollas. 

The pea, which hides stamens and pistils under a 
close cap, spreads above them brilliantly painted 
banners, meaning "honey on draft,'' and the 
honey is hidden way back in the stem end of the 
keel. When the bee lights on the wings of the corolla 
his weight pulls down the cap and releases the 
stamens ; then one stamen springs back, leaving room 
for the bee to seek the honey at the bottom of the 
stamens, but as he does so he is covered upon his 
breast with pollen. 

The composite usually detail a ring of wider- 
petaled florets upon the outer edge of the compound 



120 totalis 

flowers, simply as a splendid sign of the whereabouts 
of honev for insects coursing through the air. 

A writer on flowers says the composite owe their 
wide range to their " co-operative system." If we 
look at a daisy we see that its centre comprises a 
whole mass of little yellow bells, each of which 
consists of corolla, stamens, and pistil. The insect 
which alights on the head can take his fill in a 
leisurely way without moving from his standing place. 
Meanwhile he is proving a good ally to the plant by 
fertilizing one or another of its numerous ovaries 
with pollen gathered on some other daisy. Each 
tiny floret alone would be too inconspicuous to 
attract attention from the passing bee ; but union is 
strength for the daisy as well as for the State. 

Another bid for visits is made by perfume, which 
attracts insects as being generally associated with 
honey. Many flowers have inconspicuous corollas, 
or are hidden under foliage, or so placed as to risk 
being neglected ; these call attention by fragrance, as 
the mignonette, the violet, or arbutus. Others, as 
lilies, have large and attractive corollas, yet add per- 
fume to size and color, to insure the securing of insect 
attention. 

Plants which depend upon moths, or any night- 
flying insects, have usually strong perfume and pale 
color, as white or light lemon color, which can easily 



plant partnerebfpe 121 

be seen in twilight. The odor attracts the insect in 
its direction, and on a nearer approach the flower is 
seen. 

Most flowers have peculiarly bright streaks, spots, 
or other markings, in the direction of the honey, 
and the honey is placed at the bottom of the stamens ; 
thus the insect is attracted just where he should go. 
The tiger lily has its startling black spots, the arum 
its lines of red and green, the morning-glory its vivid 
stripes, "the jonquil its ruffled bi-colored crown, the 
beauty-of-the-night its rich purple centre. 

When the pollen is ripe for carrying, all the parts 
of the flower are at their best ; the perfume is the 
strongest, the coloring is the brightest, the nectar most 
abundant. 

Xow does some one say, " If the bee is wrestling 
with the bloom, why w r ill he not rub the pollen of the 
anthers into the pistil of the same flower ? Thus the 
very end to be avoided would be directly secured." 
Why not, indeed ? 0, wonderful plan of the flower ! 
Here is the beautiful explanation. The pollen can- 
not adhere to an unripe stigma — only the mature 
stigma provides the sticky secretion that will retain 
the pollen grain. In nearly all flowers the stamens 
and pistils do not ripen simultaneously, but the one 
a little before the other, in some Sowers the pistils 
ripen first, but in most the anthers ripen and have 



122 JBotans 

disposed of all their pollen before the stigmas have 
come to maturity. 

A bee comes to a foxglove ; he is well powdered 
with yellow pollen, which was shed upon his velvet 
coat while he sipped honey in some other foxglove. 
When he enters this fresh flower the pistils are ripe 
and their viscid stigmas are all ready to catch the 
pollen from his coat while he is eating, and hold it 
fast when he goes his way, but the stamens of this 
present flower are not ripe, and give him no burden. 
To-morrow he or some other bee will return, and 
the ripened anthers will send their store to other 
flowers. If all flowers of a kind opened on the same 
day this distribution could not be accomplished, but 
there is always a succession of bloom for days, or 
even weeks. 

Here is another query : As the pollen cannot fer- 
tilize seeds of another kind than its own, and these 
insect rangers ramble where they will, why does it 
not happen that in nine cases out of ten they go 
from flower of one kind to entirely another kind, as 
from asters to golden rod, from daisies to roses, from 
buttercup to clover ? 

The insects are not such reckless expressmen as 
that. They carry the pollen parcels to their proper 
places, because — here is a wonder of wonders — be- 
cause their fixed habit is to go from one flower to 




PLANTS AND THEIR PARTNERS 



IMant iPartnersbips 123 

another flower of that same kind, not to one of an- 
other family. They seem to have a rooted aversion to 
mixing their food or their honey cargo. From clover 
to clover, from pea to pea, from gladiolus to gladi- 
olus, that is the bees' style of doing business. 

On these hot July days, when the sun draws out 
the richest fragrance and lights up the most brilliant 
colors, watch the bees and the butterflies. The bee 
seeks clover on one trip, mignonette on another, 
lilies on a third. The butterflies have no hive re- 
turnings to mark their work, but you can count their 
visits, a dozen or more to flowers of one kind before 
they investigate the sweets of flowers of some other 
kind. 

Corollas are generally so fashioned that the insect 
does not receive the pollen promiscuously over his 
body, but brushes it off the anthers at exactly that 
place — proboscis, head, breast, shoulders — where it 
will be exactly in the way of the stigmas of the next 
flower of the same kind visited. 

Volumes have been written about the manner in 
which the pollen grains clasp the antenna? or pro- 
boscis, or stick to the top of the head or the shoul- 
ders of the insect guests. 

In spite of all these precautions an immense 
amount of pollen is lost in one way or another, es- 
pecially in wind-fertilized Bowers. This loss can be 



124 JBotaitfi 

sustained without injury to the plant-world, because 
the production of pollen grains is so enormous. 
Many flowers produce three or four million grains of 
pollen. Dandelions are saving of pollen, but even 
they yield about half a million grains to each flower. 
The Scotch fir produces so much pollen that it blows 
from the tree like a cloud of smoke, or pale yellow 
mist. 

There are some flowers where the pollen is sent to 
the pistil in the same corolla. This is called self- 
fertilization. Self-fertilization is the exception, not 
the rule. Many flowers cannot produce any seed at 
all without the aid of some especial insects. Thus 
the red clover can only yield seed if visited by 
humble bees, because these only have a feeding-tube 
of the proper size and shape to bring them into con- 
tact with the pollen. 

All flowers do not have bright corollas, nectar, and 
perfume to attract and reward their helpers in the 
seed business. What of them? What of those tiny, 
fringe-like, delicately-colored stamens and pistils 
held in a small, pale, scentless scale, which make up 
the flower of the grass ? What will the grass do 

while 

"The broom's betrothed to the bee?*' 

Many tree blossoms are in the same case. What 

has the elm or the beech to reward or lure the bee? 



plant partnersbips 125 

These plants do not require the visits of insects. 
They have secured the services of a much more 
potent ally — the summer wind. 

Look at a field of grass in its brief bloom. The 
stamens and pistils hang from the clasping scales. 
Along the field sweeps the gentle wind, swaying the 
graceful stems until they ripple like the sea. As 
they bow and rise freely upon the wind's soft wings, 
the pollen floats away, blown abroad the field and 
neighboring fields, and so reaches millions of wait- 
ing pistils. In this same manner also are the germs 
on many trees fertilized. The pollen of the thorn 
and poplar will float for miles to reach some distant 
pistillate blossoms awaiting it. 

Wherever we find inflorescence reduced to its 
lowest terms, no gay petals, no sweet perfume, no 
choice nectar, merely stamens and pistils held in a 
scale or two, as in a loosely-clasping hand, we know 
by these signs that the wind is the partner chal- 
lenged to do the outside business of the firm. For 
many years even earnest students of botany sup- 
posed that the especial intention of nature was that 
the pollen of stamens should fall upon and fertilize 
the pistils of the same flower; and so deeply rooted 
was this opinion that very evident fact- pointing to 
a different conclusion were overlooked. Mrs. Lin- 
coln's " Botany for Beginners " was one of the joys 



126 aSotanv; 

of young lovers of plants, years ago. In regard to 
stamens and pistils the good author dis : : ursed some- 
what on this wise: "It is of immense importance 
that the pollen of each flower should reach the pistils 
of that dower, and it is well to notice how this object 
is secured. In fl wers '.here the pistil is the longer 
the blossom hangs downward, so that when the 
anthers are ripe the pollen will be shed upon the 
stigma. Where the pistil is shorter than the stamens 
the flowei t, so that the pollen will still drop 

from the stamens pistiL For an 

example - rith pistils longer than the sta- 

mens examine the lily." This was the substance if 
not the letter of the work, and one accordingly " exam- 
ined the lily " and was rilled with admiration of this 
beautiful contrivance for securing self-fertilizal 
ae at that date - med to have thoughl 
noticing several very evident facts which disproved 
their whole theory of lily fertilization. First, the 
anthers and stigma d ripen at the same time ; 

the ripening of anthers is shown by the opening 
of the anther-case and the dissemination of pol- 
len; the ripening of the stigma is shown by a thin 
glue or sticky juice, which exudes from its surface 
and causes the pollen to adhere and germinate. 
When the stamens of the lily are ready the pistil is 
not. Second, the stick y surface of the stigma is the 



plant ipartnersbips 127 

top. Now, as the lily bell hangs downward, the 
under side only of the stigma — in this case merely 
the expanded crest of the style — is exposed to the 
anthers bending above, and if the pollen shower were 
ready it would almost inevitably fall upon the 
ground, and be very little likely to reach the stigma, 
As an example of erect flowers, where the pistils 
were short, the book gave the rose, and again ignored 
objections of equal force. All this shows how im- 
portant is an unbiased examination of all the facts 
in a case, and the being willing to study seriously 
and experiment carefully, even in instances where 
we think we know. Such work secured the vast 
amount of important facts with which Darwin 
dowered his age. 

The case of wind-carried pollen for trees where 
one tree bore only staminate and some other pistillate 
flowers, was earlier understood. The " Beginners " 
book gave an instance of two poplars, forty miles 
apart, one with pistillate the other with staminate 
blossoms. Of course no seed was matured until the 
growth of the two had lifted them above intervening 
obstacles, when the wind finally bore the pollen to 
tlic waiting pistils. 

Hugh Miller relates that when he was a lad some 
girls told him of a Large thorn tree which never bore 
fruit. Miller at once saw that it was a tree having 



128 ffiotang 

only pistillate blossoms. He told the maids that it 
was enchanted, but that he could release the spell. 
He said some mummery over the bush, and told the 
admiring listeners to come in the proper season and 
they would find haws. Then, at night, he brought 
secretly to the pistillate bush a large branch of stami- 
nate flowers and brushed it thoroughly over it. His 
trick — or experiment — succeeded, the flowers were 
fertilized, and, to the amazement of the girls, the 
tree bore fruit. 

Of all plants the orchids are the most remark- 
able in expedients for fertilization. Since Darwin 
opened the eyes of the world to their wonderful 
structure, there is a romance about the very name 
orchid, and we feel that it mu$t be synonymous with 
beauty, remembering those marvels of the florist's 
windows, where all splendors of flower form and 
color seem to meet. Truth is, there are some very 
inconspicuous orchids, as the " green orchis" of our 
bogs, with small, unattractive spikes of dull green 
flowers. In general, when we say " orchid," our 
imaginations hie away to the exotic parasites for 
which fabulous sums have been paid. Our own 
woods and swamps still show numerous beautiful 
orchidean varieties, which are in a fair way to be 
destroyed by ruthless tearers-up of entire plants. 
Nearly every one has seen the great purple lady's- 



©lant Ipartnersbips 129 

slipper, or moccasin flower. Between two large 
downy leaves which have protected the growing bud 
rises the simple scape, bearing on its top a solitary 
pink-purple flower. There are three green spreading 
arched sepals, and under these two narrow wrinkled 
side petals of a greenish tint, looking like sepals ; 
from between these depends a very large pink petal, 
inflated and united at its lower edge into a pouch. 
One botanist said if he " found a hundred growing 
close together, each one would be a rarity." Woods, 
hillsides, swamps maybe the home of this moccasin 
flower, if it can but be let alone to mature seed; 
but its singular beauty provokes ruthless marauders 
to tear up every specimen- seen. A near relative of 
this great purple orchis is the golden orchis, or 
" whippoorwill's shoe." The stem of this lovely 
plant will reach two feet in height, and bears broad, 
oval, many-nerved leaves, placed opposite almost to 
the top of the stem. The bright yellow flower is ter- 
minal ; the three sepals are brownish, and two unite 
under the lip ; the side petals are brown, very long, 
and waved, we might say curly, like tresses; the lip 
is a fine yellow, swelling into a pouch touched with 
brown lines and shadows. A smaller yellow lady's- 
slipper is like this, except that the color is richer, and 
it has what many orchids lack — perfume. These 
large, showy pouches of the slipper orchids attract 
9 



130 $otait£ 

bees, who thrust in their heads after honey, and so 
reach the short stamens and pistils. The pistils are 
particularly rough and moist, and to them promptly 
cleaves any pollen the visitor may have collected 
from some adjacent flower. 

The " showy orchis," whose many pink and white 
flowers grow in a long spike, is, like the moccasin 
flower, an early bloomer. The leaves are nearly 
opposite and sheathing, growing upon the stem ; the 
flower has leaf-like bracts protectively placed near it, 
it is more widely opened than the slipper varieties, 
and the lower lip is white, with a wavy outline. 
This orchis is very much like that ornament of the 
English meadows which Shakespeare in " Hamlet" 
refers to by the name "long purples." 

A small, but exquisite orchis is a native of cran- 
berry bogs ; the corolla is of a raspberry-pink tint, 
and the fragrance is strongly raspberry ; four or five 
of these delicate spires of bloom will perfume a whole 
room, and never fail to deceive people into saying, 
"Why, where are the raspberries?" Near this or- 
chis usually grows a variety closely like it, yet 
with distinct differences, the purple-fringed orchis. 
Neither exceed ten inches in height, and the bloom 
is fugitive, while the lady's-slippers will retain their 
beauty for several days. 

The Northern white orchis is tall, and has white 



flMant partnersbfps 131 

wands of bloom, delicately fragrant; in all these 
varieties the placement of stamens and pistils and 
the method of fertilization deserves careful study. 

The true " long purple " of Shakespeare, which the 
" showy orchis " resembles, is the purple loosestrife, 
an English flower become naturalized in the United 
States. The leaves are opposite, lance-shape, heart- 
lobed at base, sometimes changing to whorls of 
three ; the flowers are a deep purple-pink, with 
wrinkled petals, sometimes five, sometimes six. 
This is an instance of a flower with stamens in 
" two sets," there are six long and six short stamens. 
There is but one pistil, and this is peculiar in the 
varying length of the style ; there are three different 
lengths, which appear in different flowers. This 
variation in the length of filaments and style is by 
no means accidental, but is carefully arranged for 
the purposes of fertilization. For such purpose 
the orchids have been slowly differentiated from a 
simple flower of an original snow-drop pattern ; and 
so in the flaming tassels of loosestrife has devel- 
oped trimorphism, tin- stamens varying in length, and 
being especially fitted and ripened to suit the three 
different lengths of pistil. The loosestrife is a lover 
of stream borders and marsh lands, and in August 
Bushes wide spaces with the rich color of its long, 
irregular spikes of bloom. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PLANT-FOOD AND MOTION 

August 

" Restless sunflower, cease to move." 

"Spoke full well in language quaint and olden 
One who dwelleth on the castled Rhine, 
AVhen he called the flowers all blue and golden, 
Stars that in earth's firmament do shine." 

In the hot August clays, when the air scarcely 
stirs, the birds sit silent in their coverts, the cattle 
stand under the thickest shade or knee deep in the 
ponds. Only the insects seem to rejoice in the 
burning rays of the sun, and gayly hover around 
the splendid profusion of the flowers. 

In this season we may make various studies in 
plant-life. Seated upon some shaded veranda, we 
have the glory of the garden spread out before us. 
Or we may be on some hill, tree crowned, not far 
from the sea ; we find within hand reach golden-rod, 
asters, milfoil, blazing-star, indigo. Looking down 
the gentle slope to the level land we see black-eyed 
Susan flaunting beside St. John's wort, and wild 
132 



fl>lant>tooD anfc /Ifcotion 133 

snapdragon. Yonder the little brooklet slips along 
without a ripple, cherishing on its border loosestrife 
and jewel-weed. Out in the roadway, defiant of 
summer dust, almost in the wheel-track, the mullein 
lifts its dry, gray foliage and unfolds its tardy pairs 
of clear yellow bloom beside that exquisite flower 
the evening primrose, of which the harsh, dusty 
stem and leaves are such rude contrast to the fra- 
grant salvers of pale gold — the blossoms of one night. 

We have ample opportunity in some or ail of 
these to study the motion, food, and some of the 
varied products of the plant world. 

Motion? What motions have plants other than 
as the wind sways them ? True, there is an upward 
motion ; they " grow up," inch after inch, foot after 
foot, the law of growth overcoming the law of gravi- 
tation. The sap rises in the vessels by root-pressure, 
by capillary attraction, by the forming of a vacuum 
in the leaf-cells by evaporation, and so the climbing 
sap builds up the plant. This getting up in the 
world is not a trifle in plant-life any more than in 
human life. 

Many a plant seems to have an extreme ambition 
to rise, and if its stem proves too weak to support 
any decided advancement in growth it takes meas- 
ures to secure aid. It twines, bodily perhaps, around 
the nearest support, as do the trumpet-creeper and 



134 :(BotanE 

honeysuckle ; it modifies leaves into tendrils, as does 
the sweet pea ; it puts forth aerial roots at its nodes, 
as does the ivy ; it elongates a leaf-stem to wrap 
around and around some proffered stay, as does the 
clematis ; or diverts a bud for such purpose, as the 
grape vine. 

Other plants, of a lowlier mind, creep along the 
ground. The prince's-pine forms a strong, thick mat, 
cleaving to every root, twig, grass-stem in its way, 
striking rootlets here and there, until only a strong 
hand and a firm wrench can drag it from the earth, 
its mother. Cinque-foil and its cousin, strawberry, 
send out runners from all sides, which root and 
shoot up new plants until the whole bed is a soli- 
darity, and would so remain did not the thankless 
plants keep all food and moisture for themselves, 
and deliver over the runners to death by starvation. 

The walking-fern has a most original way of get- 
ting over the ground ; it bends its slender frond and 
starts a root by extending the tip of the mid-rib ; so 
it sets up a new plant, and is anchored fast on all 
sides by its rooted frond tips, covering the ground 
with a rich carpet of verdure. The variety of run- 
ners along the ground is as great as the climbers up. 

All motion of the plant is a form of growth. The 
plant grows by day and by night, but more by day, 
as light and heat are incentives to growth. 



JManMoofc anfc /flbotfon 135 

There is still another motion, so peculiar that it 
seems almost to be the result of plant preference. 
This motion is called heliotropism — that is, sun- 
loving or following. The name of that fragrant 
flower, the heliotrope, will aid us to remember this 
term. The heliotrope is a persistent sun-worshiper, 
and received its name from its constant turning to- 
ward the sun, the Greek name of the sun being Helios. 

Let us take the sunflower as an example of sun- 
following. If we examine the stem we shall see that 
its fibres are twisted, or swerved a little, by its con- 
stant turning from side to side, in its habit of sun- 
worship. It is early morning ; the broad golden disc 
of the compound flower bends toward the east, to 
catch the sun's first rays. At noon the flower is held 
erect, fair to the zenith, eyeing the glowing sun as 
a caged eagle does, in intense longing. As the 
afternoon passes, the flower bends slowly westward, 
and turns the same full look on the sun at setting 
that it did at rising. All the sunflower family are 
sun-followers. 

Many other plants have this habit ; it belongs not 
only to flowers, but in some cases to leaves, roots, 
and steins. The leaves and roots of the onion are 
sun-followers. That pursuit of light which we have 
noted, by which steins growing in any dark place seek 
the light, is a form of heliotropism. 



136 JSotans 

Some plants, as a part of the mistletoe, turn from 
the sun, avoiding it ; so do the ripened flaxseeds. 
All pot-plants show sun-following if they are so 
placed that one side is turned to the light and one to 
the shadow. The leaves turn toward the sun, reach- 
ing out their stemlets in his direction ; the shaded 
side of the plant seems to be really bare of leafage. 
Turn this bare side lightwards, and in a few days all 
the leaves have swayed thither ; the ivy-leafed gera- 
nium is a good example of this, its turning is so 
prompt and persistent, To keep pot-plants sym- 
metrical in growth the pots should be turned reg- 
ularly every few clays unless they have light equally 
on all sides. 

Plants have a motion of water-following, as well as 
sun-following. When a plant grows where there is 
dryness on one side and moisture on the other, the 
leaves and roots will be chiefly found on. the water 
side. Note how willows and alders bend over the 
water by which they grow. For long distances tree 
roots will strike out towards water. Water-following 
is more common in roots, and sun-following in 
flowers and stems. There are some few plants which 
turn from moisture, just as there are some few which 
turn from the sun. 

Plants, especially plant roots, will travel consid- 
erable distances seeking earth in which to hide. This 



JMant=tooD anD /Ubotton 137 

pursuit or bending toward earth is called geotropism, 
or earth-following. Thus the radicle, or root-part, 
always grows down into the earth, while the plumule 
ascends. The poppy is a pronounced sun-follower 
while it is in bud, and an earth-seeker in blossom 
and seed-bearing. Note the curvature of poppy 
stems. 

Many leaves and stems have some especial way of 
growing with regard to the horizon, and nothing will 
induce them to change their fashion. You may 
turn them, tie them, even nail them fast, and they 
will pull away and go according to their habit. 
Plants expend a deal of energy in growth movements 
of various kinds, for nearly all plant motion is a 
form of growth. 

Gravity, light, heat, moisture, electricity, strength 
of fibre, sensitiveness of surface, are all parts of the 
" how " and the " why " of plant motion. 

You can force a leaf tip or a terminal bud to write 
for you the story of its motions. Insert a bristle or 
a cambric needle in the tip of the leaf or bud ; smoke 
a pane of glass well and lay it where the point 
of the needle or bristle will just touch the smoked 
side. As it moves the path of motion will be traced 
upon the glass. 

Interesting as is the study of plant motion, let us 
forsake it and consider for a little plant-food. The 



138 JBotans 

plant receives food from earth, water, air. The 
earth gives the plant sulphur, iron, soda, magnesia, 
phosphorus, and other mineral substances which 
we have before noted. These are all offered to the 
plant, held in solution in water. We are sure of 
this, because the food must pass into the cells, the 
cells have walls, and only water, with what is held 
in solution that is changed to a liquid state in water, • 
can pass through the cell walls. We know that 
these mineral substances are carried into the plant, 
changed and become a part of it, because when a 
plant is burned, destroying its moisture, these min- 
erals can be taken again from its ashes. 

From water the plant receives as food hydrogen 
and forms of ammonia. From air the plants absorb 
carbon (dioxide), oxygen, nitrogen, and ammonia; 
very much of the first, little of the second, and very 
little of the- others. 

Plants seem to be as foolish as some people, in 
that they will absorb from the air very poisonous 
elements, which destroy them. When plants grow 
out of doors the winds, dews, and rains free the 
leaves from accumulations of dust which obstruct 
the pores and hinder the receiving of food. In very 
dry and dusty seasons we notice that the plants be- 
come sickly from the stopping of the pores. Plants 
need clean skins as human beings do. House plants 



(Mant^fooD anfc Cotton 139 

should be well washed all over now and then, to 
admit of their getting their proper amount of food 
from the air. 

Certain classes of plants use a portion of animal 
food. We are accustomed to the idea of animals 
eating plants, but when we see the tables turned, and 
plants eating animals, that is queer indeed ! The 
animal food of the " flesh-eating " or carnivorous 
plants is really the juice sucked from the bodies of 
insects. 

The sun-dew, common in marshes, expands a 
little sticky, pink-green shirt-button of a leaf, on 
which are numerous stiff hairs. The clear drops of 
gum attract insects to the leaf, and they are held by 
the feet or wings. Their struggles cause the leaf to 
fold together, when the hairs pierce the body of the 
insect and drink up the juices. When only a dry 
husk remains the leaf opens and the wind shakes 
the shell away. 

The pitcher-plant invites insects by a honey-like 
secretion. They fall into the liquid stored in the 
pitcher and are there drowned, because, owing to nu- 
merous downward-pointing hairs in the throat of the 
pitcher, they cannot climb back. Easy is the de- 
scent into evil ! The acrid liquor in the pitcher 
digests tli<* l)o<lic< of the insects, turning them 
into plant-food. Flies, ant-, gnats, little beetles are 



140 SSotan^ 

often caught, but bees very seldom. Bees have their 
affairs to attend to, and cannot go picnicking into 
pitcher-plants. 

There is a little water-weed, furnished with 
numerous bladders, which were once supposed to 
act as floats for it, but are really traps for tiny in- 
sects — " eel traps," Sir John Lubbock calls them. 
The insects crawl in, but a ring of hairs that will 
not bend outward hinders their escape, and the 
plant very soon has sucked their bodies dry. 

The Venus fly-trap, or dionea, has an ingenious 
arrangement for catching insect food. A part of the 
leaf is furnished with a strong hinge, some honey 
dew and a fringe of prickles. When an insect alights 
on this pretty device the hinge snaps the sides of the 
leaf together, the prickles pierce the body of the 
captive, and drink it dry. Such are some of the 
varieties of plant-food. 

The consideration of what plants eat suggest to us 
what peculiar products they furnish to us. Of these 
we will but briefly enumerate starch, albumen, flour ; 
sugar, which is very abundant in some maples, in 
sorghum, and sugar canes, in beets, carrots, and 
other plants ; gum-arabic, gutta-percha, resin, tur- 
pentine, sweet or olive oil, other oils, balsams, gums, 
camphor, many dyes, many useful acids, and many 
very strong poisons. The ingenuity of man has 




■ Suide*(D«s e r*/?) 



INSECT EATERS 



UMant^foofc anfc /Ifcotton 141 

succeeded in increasing in plants the qualities which 
are most useful to him. Cultivation increases the 
amount of snowy fibre in the cotton plant, and the 
amount of food-stuff in the cereals. Man, having 
resolved to force the beet-root to yield him sugar, 
has succeeded in converting an annual root into a 
biennial, because the root grown in a single season 
cannot properly store up and " cook " within it 
enough of sugar to make it valuable. Cultivation 
directing the strength of the plant to the especial 
end of its mercantile value, repressing development 
in other directions, makes almost an entire change 
in some plants. The Irish potato in its natural wild 
state had but small tubers, which, while nutritious, 
were nearly tasteless ; cultivation and the production 
of new varieties by seedlings and crossings, has made 
the potato the most important root in the world. 
For lack of this single " root," which, as we know, is 
not a true root, but a thickened underground stem, 
wherein a thrifty plant stores up starch and a few 
other food materials, a great people were brought 
into the most terrible straits, and the " [rish 
famine," occasioned by the potato blight, is written 
in history. We get a commentary on the depend- 
ence of the greater upon the less when we read that 
tlic [rish nation lias never since that'famine regained 
its vivacity and lightrheartedness. 



142 ^Sotam? 

In the month of August our attention is drawn 
to this especial point of the plant world as food pur- 
veyors. The plant has been sap-feeding since Feb- 
ruary, and not only has attained its full annual 
development, but has laid up nearly all its stores, 
and is turning toward the period of rest; growth is 
now very slow, except in some late varieties. Fruits 
have gained their full size, and are now ripen- 
ing ; roots are also mature for gathering when it is 
the root or tuber that is of prime food importance : 
the various grain crops, except the late-planted 
buckwheat, are ready for housing. It is a stu- 
pendous thought that all of this vegetable material 
was once mineral, and that in fashion which eludes 
human analysis and pursuit the mineral has become 
vegetable in the laboratory of the plant ; then being 
introduced by eating into the organism of the ani- 
mal, will by digestion and assimilation become ani- 
mal ; finally returning to the soil in the process of 
disintegration, will once more be divided into its 
mineral portions, to be sent again upon its ceaseless 
circle of growth and decay. 

This thought of these transmutations and changes 
outdistancing the dreams of alchemy brings by some. 
subtle association the smallest, least-known of plants 
into mental view — the bacteria * k microbes " which 
were long claimed by zoologists, but have been of late 



l>lant=too& an& /Ifcotton 143 

freely relinquished to the botanists. These bacteria 
are now granted to be the simplest plant forms, and 
related to the algae, or sea-weeds. When one states 
that they are so small that fifteen hundred of them 
could stand in line upon a pin's head, and many of 
them so diaphanous that they cannot be studied 
under the strongest glass until their texture is re-in- 
forced by some kind of dye-stuff, we shall conclude 
that here we have reached the "infinitely little." 
Xo wonder that for ages the very existence of bacteria 
was unknown, and that their vast masses when made 
evident, as by the color of some of them, were sup- 
posed to be single individuals, as for instance the 
myriad clusters of them which by land or water pro- 
duced phosphorescent life. The commonest forms of 
these minute plants are rod-shaped, spirals, spheres, 
or egg-shaped ; of the largest, twenty-five thousand 
in a line will occupy an inch ; of the smallest, double 
that number. ' They multiply by division. One bac- 
terium is a single cell ; it divides, and there are two ; 
each of these divides, and lo, four ; another division, 
eight, and so on through infinite geometric progres- 
sion. It is said that if let strictly aione, an unbroken 
series from one would in five days (ill all oceans with 
a mass of bacteria a mile deep! Fortunately the 
series is always interrupted: everything destroys 
them; yet they seem to thrive in every circumstance 



144 $otan2 

and place. Heat destroys them — yet they survive 
cooking ; cold destroys them, yet they flourish in a 
block of ice, and are exuberant over a heavy freeze. 
These vegetable atoms disport themselves like ani- 
mals ; in water they swim like fishes and dive like 
little boys, and whirl and antic until one would fancy 
they must be guided by instincts or intentions. There 
is probably no breath of air, no fruit, no vegetable, 
no inch of soil free from some of the countless hosts 
of these bacteria. If they were necessarily de- 
structive of human life the human race would have 
perished long ago. On the contrary, by grace of 
bacteria some of our most important food stuffs are 
food. Cheese and butter, for instance, would be 
without good flavor if the bacteria proper to their 
production were lacking. Also there are bacteria 
that make havoc with both butter and milk, so that 
while the one kind of " microbe " is to be encouraged 
the other is to be antagonized. Thus in the plant 
world we find organism growing upon organism, par- 
asite upon other plant, and microbe upon parasite, 
and all of these with their especial uses in the econ- 
omy of plant or animal life. 

From small to great, from the microscopic " mi- 
crobe " only lately admitted to be a plant at all, we 
turn to the bright succession of summer's larger 
children, the beautiful flowers, more precious than 



IMant^fooO anfc Motion 145 

ever now that so many of their kindred have faded 
and perished, and that two months more in our 
Northern climates will complete their reign, and 
bereave us of their presence. 

Along the roadsides that brilliantly blue flower, 
the " simpler's joy, 1 ' grows abundantly. If the long- 
spike of blossoms opened at the one time, this would 
be among our flower favorites, but. the spike is ren- 
dered unsightly by the hard, rough seed vessels of 
the lower blossoms, while the florets at the top 
of the stalk are just opened. Another misfortune 
of this honest plant is, that owing to the localities of 
its choice the rough stem and leaves are usually 
loaded with dust. In spite of these drawbacks the 
vervain, or " simpler's joy," is a plant of song and 
story. The Latin poets tell us that it was a favorite 
decoration for altars, and was made into garlands for 
beasts that were to be sacrificed. Xo doubt the 
wreaths fashioned by the impulsive people of 
Lystra, when they were about to do homage to 
Paul and Barnabas as epiphanies of Jupiter and 
Mercury, were made of this blue simpler's joy. In 
the Middle Ages this plant was called "The Herb of 
Grace," and is said to have first bloomed upon Cal- 
vary. The name simpler's joy has no reference to 
idiots — "simplers" were formerly the gatherers of 
medicinal plants, "herb doctors,' 1 and these made 
10 



146 JBotans 

especial use of the vervain, as it was believed to be a 
specific in many diseases. 

August is the gala day of the wild asters — white, 
blue, pink, and purple — the white being further 
varied by a difference in the color of the centres, 
some being brown and some yellow. Asters are so 
prolific in bloom and have such intense blue and 
purple coloring that they are a conspicuous feature 
in the August landscape. Fifty-four varieties are 
denizens of the Northeastern States, and of these all 
but twelve are blue or purple. An open, hillside 
covered with wild asters, golden-rod, ironweed, and 
chicory is a splendid display of color, all made more 
dazzling and vivid by the blaze of the August sun. 
The asters close at evening, the chicory is entirely 
shut by noon, the ironweed and golden-rod, un- 
daunted, spread out their glories through all the 
hours of the day and night. " Blessings brighten as 
they take their flight " is a saying that now more 
than savors of triteness ; it holds good of the flowers, 
which put on their most gorgeous hues with the 
advancing season. Of these late autumn beauties 
the chicory is the most useful — it is a roadside 
bloomer, and many a tired wayfarer has no doubt 
been cheered by "its eyes of heavenly hue." In 
France and England the roasted roots are exten- 
sively used mixed with coffee and ground, the 



HMant=foofc anO /nbotion 147 

chicory, it is claimed, making the coffee more tonic 
and nutritious. Chicory leaves are a favorite salad 
in France, the gardeners blanching them as we do 
celery stalks. Horace frequently mentions chicory 
as one of the prominent articles of his frugal diet, 
and Pliny tells us that the Egyptians used it freely 
on their tables ; it is a prominent salad constituent 
in Egypt. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PILGRIMS OF THE YEAR 

September 

"The violet loves the sunny bank, 
The cowslip loves the lea, 
The scarlet creeper loves the elm, 
The pine the mountain free." 

The year around, and the world around, journey 
the plant pilgrims. Among those perennials which 
are found in all latitudes and seasons are the lichens, 
fungi, and algae, or water weeds. In September, 
while we wait for the fruits and seeds to finish Ripen- 
ing, let us make some small studies in these three re- 
lated groups in the vegetable sub-kingdom called the 
thallogens. 

This sub-kingdom, one of the chief divisions of the 
vegetable kingdom, is known also as the class thal- 
lophytes. It contains the simplest forms of vegetable 
life. Its chief groups are the fungi and algse,the lichens 
being related to both, as if algse and fungi had united 
in one plant, dividing and somewhat changing the 
characteristics of each. 

At any period of the year you can find lichens in 
148 



Cbe pilgrims of tbe HJear 149 

abundance. They cover ragged rocks, dress up old 
roofs, walls, fence-rails, and dead stumps, especially 
delighting in the north side of trees. If we examine 
them through a magnifying glass we shall see that 
they are made up of cells, laid side and side like 
little chains of beads, or of cells expanded into short 
tubes or threads, lying like heaps of tiny fagots. 
Instead of seeds, lichens have a fine dust called 
spores, from which they develop. 

Lichens are exceedingly long-lived and excessive^ 
slow of growth. The lily attains its lovely maturity 
in a few months ; the oaks, elms, pines, become great 
trees in twenty or thirty years ; the humble lichen 
often lives forty or fifty years before it is old enough 
to complete its growth by producing spores. Bot- 
anists say that the life of a lichen is fitful and strange, 
and is practically indefinite as to duration. Lichens 
simply live on and on. 

Some lichens have been known to live nearly fifty 
year3 without seeming to grow ; they appear to dry up, 
and nearly vanish — then suddenly, from some cause, 
there is a revival of growth, they expand again. Small 
and insignificant as these lichens are, they often out- 
live those longest-lived of trees, the cedar of Lebanon 
and the California redwood. 

The condition of lichen existence is water, for from 
moisture alone, in dew or rain, they secure their food. 



150 JBotans 

The carbon, oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen, in air and 
rain, afford them their nourishment. The lichen 
generally refuses to grow in foul air laden with 
noxious gases. In the impure air of cities few 
appear, but they abound in the open country. They 
absorb by all the surface except the base by which 
they are fastened to their place of dwelling. They 
have no roots, and simply adhere to bare rocks, 
sapless wood, even to naked glass, from which they 
can receive no nutriment whatever. 

In comparison with what is known of plants in 
general, our knowledge of lichens is yet very limited. 
.They seem to be made chiefly of a kind of gelatin, 
which exists in lichens only. Humble as they ap- 
pear, they have always been of large importance in 
arts and manufactures. They produce exquisite 
dyes — a rich, costly purple, a valuable scarlet, many 
shades of brown, and particularly splendid hues of 
blue and yellow are obtained from these common 
little growths, which in themselves display chiefly 
shades of black, gray and green, varied with pink, 
red and orange cups, balls and edges. 

Formerly the gelatin of lichens was used as a sub- 
stitute for gum-arabic ; now other substances have 
taken its place in commerce. Once it was employed 
as a basis for perfumes and toilet powders; in this 
direction also it is out of fashion. 



Gbe pilgrims of tbe Iffear 151 

Another use of the lichens is as a food-stuff. The 
reindeer of northern lands finds in the lichens under 
the snow his chief food. The most nutritious of the 
lichens is the Iceland moss, a valuable diet for inva- 
lids. This moss, ground to a powder and mixed 
with milk, is often the chief nourishment of poor 
Icelanders. The Esquimaux, the red Indians, and 
Canadian hunters in polar regions use freely the 
" tripe lichen " which grows upon rocks in very cold 
climates. On the barren steppes of Asia is found 
the " manna lichen," growing unattached in beds 
from four to six inches thick. It is of a gray color 
and sweet taste, offering sustenance to dwellers 
where no other vegetable life is found. 

Long ago lichens were much used as medicines. 
They are harmless, as no poisonous lichen is 
known, but they are no longer regarded as remedies. 

When the ordinary flower gatherer speaks of liver- 
worts he refers to a member of the crow-foot family, 
thehepatica triloba, also called the liver-leaf. This 
plant receives its common name from the shape of 
its thick, three-lobed leaves, shaded with dark red, 
brown, or liver color. The liver shape of the leaf 
caused the " simplers," or herb doctors, to prescribe 
it in liver complaints. The botanical name hepatica 
is from the Greek for liver, also given from the shape 
of the leaf. The true liverwort which the proles- 



152 JSotanE 

sional botanist recognizes is, however, not a flower- 
ing plant, but a lichen, one of the most interesting 
of its class. We have all noticed clinging to damp 
stones, to decayed logs near a spring, or to the north 
side of rocks, something like a dark green, moist, flat 
leaf, curled up at the edges. In September these odd 
patches are in their glory, and in September, if we 
can find a rock from which wells a spring, we shall 
be sure of finding liverworts in abundance. Our 
first experience will be of the difficulty of removing 
them from the rocks to which they adhere, closely 
applied by all their under surface except the full, 
ruffled edges. As even when a flat, wide knife-blade 
is used they are not likely to come off unharmed, let 
us sit down by them, lens in hand, and study their 
beauties and the wonders of their structure. First 
we perceive, when we violently tear one or two speci- 
mens from their hold, that the under surface is pro- 
vided with hairs like spun glass, which lay hold of 
the minute interstices and irregularities of the stone 
and hold the plants down closer and more firmly 
than any cement could do. 

Next, turning our attention to the upper surface 
of this leaf-like expansion, we find it covered with 
dark-green lines, so disposed as to divide the epi- 
dermis into a diamond-shaped pattern, which is yet 
further beautified by a dot in the centre of each 



Gbe JMlartms of tbe j^ear 153 

diamond. Now each of these diamond-shaped 
spaces is a distinct through and through division of 
the liverwort expansion, and the dot in the centre 
represents the throat or mouth of this portion, being 
the opening by which so much of the plant as one 
diamond represents breathes out oxygen and other 
elements of which the space desires to rid itself, and 
breathes in the carbonic acid gas upon which, in 
common with other plant life, it feeds. In fact, this 
dot, which to the unaided eye appears to be merely 
ornamental, under the magnifying glass reveals itself 
as a tubular orifice, a ventilating chimney. Having 
investigated the under surface, with its spun-glass 
hairs serving as roots for mooring, not for nourish- 
ing this plant, and the diversified upper surface with 
its air holes, let us make a crosswise section, and 
magnifying it many diameters we shall see that upon 
the under surface are laid several rows of cells; each 
diamond-wise division is elevated at the centre, 
something like 1 a house roof, the dot, composed of 
minute cells built into a tube, being at the centre. 
The surface of the liverwort is composed of a layer 
of small bead-like cells, and between these and the 
lower cells grow tiny fleshy-branched objects like 
cactus-plants reduced by a million fold. Dropping 
the lens we observe the liverworts with our naked 
eyeSj and we see thai they have growing upon the 



154 Botanfi 

surface small, plant-like objects about half an inch 
high, and of a lighter green, grayish, or even of 
brighter color. On one liverwort expanse these blos- 
soms, for they are what serve this lichen for blossoms, 
are shaped exactly like the little leather-colored 
fungi that abound over some spot where wood has 
decayed or a hayrick has once stood. Here they 
stand, tiny fringe-edged umbrella-like things, and here 
on the next liverwort is something quite different ! 
The growth on this other leaf is also about half an 
inch high, and looks as if the fairies had been making 
toys and imitating the little tin trumpets which boy- 
children love to blow. These atomic trumpets stand 
mouths up, but the edge of the mouth is waved or 
scalloped. Now bring the microscope to bear again 
and these little umbrellas appear to be made of 
glittering spun glass, abundant in gay fringes. 
These umbrella or mushroom-shaped growths answer 
to the pistils of flowering plants, and are nothing 
more nor less than seed-discs ; that is, spore pro- 
ducers. As in flowering plants it takes two to make 
a bargain or produce the future plant, the pistillate 
liverwort, or what answers to the pistillate form of 
higher organizations, must be fertilized by what 
represents the staminate growth. That is supplied 
by the liverwort which bears the trumpets or clubs, 
whichever we choose to call them. We w T ill find 



vibe pilgrims of tbe icat 155 

that these do not really start from the upper surface, 
as do the umbrellas, but from among the glassy 
hairs of the under surface ; then they make a curve 
among the indentations of the ruffled edge, and 
pressing upward appear to grow from the edge of 
the upper surface. Each of these clubs is full of 
minute pockets, each pocket is full of dust, each 
atom of dust is like a little whipstock with two 
lashes; each of these is dependent on water to ex- 
pand and set it free, and for their convenience the 
liverwort grows where water abounds. Once visited 
by water, the lashes of these microscopic whips be- 
gin to wriggle and snap, and on some convenient 
puff of air find their way to one of the waiting um- 
brellas. Here the cases of spores are fertilized, and 
when ripe become so active and elastic that they 
leave their cases and sow themselves around by mill- 
ions. Of these vast numbers it is but the few which 
survive, and of those that produce other liverworts 
the produce may be not in its turn fruitful, but sterile. 
One singular fact about liverworts is this, that they 
may take quite another fashion for reproducing 
themselves. Some, instead of the clubs and the 
umbrellas, produce on the surface little elaborately 
decorated cups of emerald green, sparkling with 
atoms of that glassy fibre which moors the under 
side of the leal' to the rock. In the light, and under 



156 JBotans 

a magnifying glass, this powdered glass shines like 
the dust of all manner of jewels, and within the tiny 
nest lie little spores as eggs lie in a bird's nest. 
Again water comes to the rescue, dew or rain fills the 
nests to overflowing, and borne out on the waters go 
the spores to adhere to some rock surface and expand 
to other liverworts. Again, instead of such cup-shaped 
nests full of spores, the upper surface of the liver- 
wort may produce bags, or flat pockets, or little squat 
bottles ; whatever it is, it is rilled with spores, and 
thus acts as a seed-case, while the naked spores per- 
form the functions of a seed. Such a study of a 
liverwort, a typical lichen, introduces us to some of 
the mysteries of lichen life. In it all we are talking 
about the "infinitely little," but since we have brought 
our minds to try and conceive of twenty-five or fifty 
thousand bacteria in line on one inch length of any 
surface, or hundreds of them easily accommodated 
side by side on the head of a pin, we can allow our- 
selves to discourse of liverwort cells, fringes, sacs, 
pockets, nests, clubs, and whiplashes without flinch- 
ing. All this is what exists and what we might see 
if our eyes were strong enough. 

FUNGI. 

While not so abundant as lichens, the fungi are 
well known everywhere. We cannot claim, as for 



£be pilgrims of tbe lear 157 

lichens, that they are harmless, for many are a viru- 
lent poison ; others have a disgusting oclor, and nearly 
all are dangerous in their decay. On the other hand, 
many of them are a useful, delicious food, and nearly 
all are beautiful when first developed. Their variety 
also is very fascinating. 

In a walk of less than two miles in a wet summer, 
may be found twenty different kinds of fungi — some 
no larger than a pea, some eight inches in diameter. 
They may be round, oval, flat, cup-shaped, horn- 
shaped, cushion-shaped, saucer-shaped ; they are 
snow-white, gray, tan, yellow, lavender, orange, dark 
brown, pink, crimson, purple, and variously mottled ; 
scaly, or smooth as with varnish. Placed on a large 
platter among dark green mosses they will be, for 
one day, a magnificent collection. 

One large, egg-shaped variety, growing in pairs, 
is of a purple shade, very solid, and when broken 
open seems filled with glittering matter, like iron 
or steel filings. Another tan-colored, plum-shaped 
fungus, firm and smooth, is of nearly a royal 
purple within. 

September is a good month for the study of fungi, 
especially after tbe early fall rains, when the woods 
and pastures will be found well filled, not only with 
brilliant, useless, or poisonous varieties, but with 
delicious edible kinds. Popularly people call the 



158 3Botan£ 

edible specimens "mushrooms," and the rest " toad- 
stools," the number of poisonous or of edible in- 
stances so named depending rather upon the amount 
of knowledge of the collector than upon the real 
qualities of the fungi, for many denominate as 
" toad-stools " what others know to be an excellent 
food. 

Many varieties not usually eaten are wholesome, 
and many which human beings reject other animals 
thrive upon. One large, brown " toad-stool " of the 
woods is, in its season, the chief food of the wood- 
tortoise. 

The truffle is a rich, expensive food-article, a fun- 
gus growing generally under ground. It is much 
used in flavoring dishes, and is never plentiful, as 
demand always outruns supply. Dogs and pigs are 
trained to hunt truffles by the scent. The animals- 
run along with their noses to the ground until they 
find a truffle bed. They are rewarded by a piece of 
cheese, which encourages them to continue the hunt 
and not dig up the dainty for themselves. The 
truffle is roundish, dark colored, rough skinned, 
white in the interior, and of strong odor. Some 
truffles are strawberry or apple scented, others have 
a decided smell of onion or garlic. 

In general a fungus may be defined as a thallo- 
phyte without any chlorophyl or leaf-green in its 



Zbc pilgrims of tbe Uear 159 

composition. Among the brilliant colors displayed 
by fungi no green or blue can be found. 

The most popular and useful fungus is the table 
mushroom. This rarely ever grows in the woods, in 
shade, on wet lands, or on decaying stumps. It pre- 
fers the open, breezy, well-sunned pastures, where 
the grass is kept short by the grazing of sheep or 
cattle. Early in the morning, or shortly before 
sunset, the dainty white or cream-colored buttons, 
borne on snow-white stalks, push up through the 
soil, and gradually expand until the discs are flat or 
but slightly convex. From two to six inches is the 
diameter, seldom more than two or three. 

Varieties of the pasture mushroom are few, and 
can readily be learned. The mushroom is composed 
of stem and cap ; the stem is finger-shaped with 
the roundish end in the' earth. About half way up 
is usually a ring of the covering skin, where, in the 
button-shape, the veil of the mushroom was attached. 

This veil extends over the cap, and is left at the 
edge in a little frill ; it can be easily stripped off. 
Under the veil the flesh is ivory white, and is smooth 
and firm. 

The under side of the cap is laid in plaits called 
gills, from their resemblance to fish gills. They never 
grow fast to, or down upon, the stem, usually stopping 
short off, aboul one-tenth of an inch from its juncture 



160 JSotan^ 

with the cap. Mushrooms are cultivated in gardens 
or cellars. They grow from spores and little finger- 
like lengths, called spawn, which . are produced b} r 
the spores. Mushrooms turn black or purplish after 
the first twenty hours of growth. When the gills 
have taken this dark hue the mushroom is unfit to 
eat. 

Some fungi grow in very wet places; the woods 
are likely to be full of them after a few rainy days. 
They are all short-lived. 

One or two fungi have phosphorus in them, and 
shine in the dark. Fungi are generally parasitic on 
some underground decay, as they lack leaf-green to 
assimilate food for themselves. 

While lichens seem to promote the growth of 
plants upon which they are fastened, fungi generally 
promote decay and hasten death. The lichen seems 
to be a link between this class fungi and the alga?, or 
water weeds. 

William Hamilton Gibson is probably the dis- 
coverer in this country of a very wonderful fungus, 
which thus far has only been described by himself in 
articles in the " Scientific American " and " Harper's 
Young People." The marvel about this fungus is its 
carnivorous habit of growth. From his account of 
the specimen observed we draw our statement. Near 
the bank of a stream, in a bed of rich green moss, 



Zhe pilgrims of tbe lear 161 

Mr. Gibson saw a brilliant orange-colored cone, not 
quite an inch in height. Examination showed this 
to be the cap of a small, inedible mushroom. The 
little cone had a long stem penetrating deeply the 
moss bed, and Mr. Gibson, knowing that all fungi 
grow upon some buried body — vegetable as a matter 
of custom — concluded to dig the orange-tinted 
fungus up, and see what manner of food it was 
using. Separating the moss and working with care 
he secured the entire fungus, and found it fastened 
upon a chrysalis an inch and a half in length ! The 
roots of the fungus branched and penetrated the 
chrysalis in several portions, being there firmly 
imbedded. 

Having dissected the chrysalis, Mr. Gibson found 
in it the perfectly formed moth, which had reached 
maturity and been ready to emerge when the roots 
of the fungus penetrated its body, sucked up its 
juices and accomplished its death. The moth had 
been ready to seek air and light on a pair of wings, 
a handsome insect; instead it was now reaching air 
and light in the form of an orange-colored mush- 
room, whose period of life would probably be lim- 
ited to no more than forty-eight hours, if so many. 

Mr. Gibson assumes that this was no erratic 
fungus, living in a manner singular and individual, 
but was of a family of feeders upon animal life, and if 
11 



162 :©otans 

an instance were found again it would be rooted in a 
chrysalis. He states that it very plainly belongs to 
a genus of fungi, of which several species are known 
and described, all having this habit of transforming 
buried insect life into fungus tissues. In New 
Zealand one of these fungi plants itself upon the head 
of a caterpillar ; always upon a caterpillar, and 
always upon the head. It rapidly attains a growth 
of several inches, absorbing in its increase the body 
of the insect. Nutriment from this source failing, 
the fungus extends its roots to the soil, and there 
completes its growth and decay. In the shops of 
apothecaries in China a prominent article, considered 
a specific for many ills, is sold in little bundles. 
These bundles appear like a bunch of dry and 
cooked sticks four inches long. Examination shows 
that each stick is a dried sample of this fungus 
which thrives on caterpillars, and at its root end is 
attached the equally dried head of the unfortunate 
insect. 

The singular circumstances of this growth, this 
strange union of an animal and vegetable, no 
doubt impressed the Chinese mind as a manifestation 
of some peculiar power, and convinced them that 
necessarily it must possess healing virtues. Nor is 
such a notion without parallel in the English race. 
There is an ancient medical work which has a " cure 



Zhe flMlgrims of tbe Jffear 163 

for idiocy " in an oil called " oil of manskull." 
Thyme, rue, lard, and the ground skull of a recently 
dead person were to be mixed and melted into an 
ointment, which, rubbed into the idiot's head, would 
produce excellent results ! The Chinese with his 
fungus-caterpillar was no more absurd-. 

ALGJE. 

Let us look at the alga?. Unlike the fungi they 
have a portion of chlorophyl, or leaf-green. They 
are known as fresh-water algae and salt-water algae 
(usually called sea-weeds). This suggests to us that 
their homes being in the water, they must secure 
their food, as do the fishes, from the water and the air 
contained in water. This accounts for their being 
in most cases so very finely divided. Nearly all 
leaves or fronds growing under water are much 
parted, as if they had been cut into little strips or 
fringes. 

The algas are flowerless plants, yet from their deli- 
cate, graceful forms, and lovely coloring, are often as 
beautiful as flowers. The gardens of the sea, with 
their flowerless plants and flower-like animals, the 
sra-anemones, are as charming as the gardens of the 
land. 

The fresh-water algse arc mostly green, pulpy, and 
not so richly varied as sea-weeds. Souk- of then) 



164 JSotan^ 

grow in hot springs, where the water is so warm you 
can scarcely bear your hand in it ; some of them, the 
tiniest of all, the red-snows of the arctic regions, 
grow upon snow fields. 

The sea-weeds offer us most pleasing studies. The 
broad leaf-like, sometimes much-branched part is 
called the frond, also the thallus. This may have a 
stalk and a root-like expansion; these do not serve 
any ordinary purpose of stem or root, they merely 
fasten the weed upon some stone or shell, and permit 
it to wave gently about in the water. In this waving 
motion the algae are fishing, as the barnacles do, 
gathering food from the water and the air in the 
water ; for, like all other plants, their food is mineral 
substances held in solution, and gases gathered from 
the air, such as carbon dioxide and oxygen. 

Some sea-weeds are merely straight, coarse grass- 
like blades, as the abundant California weed ; others 
are coarse, of a dull olive green, much branched, like 
the bladder-wrack which often lines the shores. 
Others are broad, curly fronds of green, red, brown, 
or nearly white, as the various kelps. The waters 
of the ocean are sometimes so full of a moderately 
coarse red weed, like a tangle of crimson strings, that 
the great waves lose their green color and white, 
foamy curves, and break upon the beach like waves 
of blood. 



Bre±<l Mould 




._ CkeeseMculd^ 



M.u.Sh.roor» S 




L'C/ieHS. 






THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS 



Gbe pilgrims of tbe year 165 

Many sea-weeds are very finely divided, graceful 
and exquisitely formed, beyond all other plants, and 
these lace-like fronds, beside which maiden-hair 
fern and the fringe-tree look coarse, are tinted in 
brown, red, pink, crimson, green, and minglings of 
these colors. Blue, purple, and pure yellow are 
shades unknown to sea-weeds. The nearest ap- 
proach to yellow is the bronze of the tiny ball- 
bladders of the gulf- weed. 

Algae are made of cells held together by a kind of 
gelatin. Sometimes the cells elongate so as to be 
tube-like. In some cases the cell-walls are so clearly 
marked that they look like strings of beads. Like 
other flowerless plants, sea-weeds grow not from 
seeds, but from spores. 

Corallines are stiff sea-weeds, coated thickly with 
lime gathered from the water. Some sea-weeds, 
as dulse and Irish-moss, are eatable. The largest 
plant in the world is a great sea-weed which grows 
to be from three hundred to seven hundred yards 
long. Gulf-weed, or sargassum, has never been 
found fastened, but floats in masses, often of several 
acres extent. The Sargassum Sea is a mass of this 
weed many miles broad spread out upon the water. 
The stalks of some of these great weeds are larger 
than a man's body. 

Many fishes and other sea animals feed upon sen- 



166 JSotan^ 

weeds. Algse are of some value as fertilizers when 
spread upon the fields ; certain kinds of kelp were 
once the chief source of our soda supply. 

PARASITIC PLANTS. 

These are plants which do not draw their chief 
food supply directly from the earth or air, but lazily 
settle upon other plants, and feed upon what their 
more industrious neighbors have converted into food 
stuff. Plant idlers and paupers these. 

The mistletoe is parasitic, as it grows from a seed 
which being dropped upon a branch takes root there, 
and derives nutriment from the sap which it sucks 
by its roots, forced into the fibres of the tree-host. 
The mistletoe is not a true parasite, because it re- 
tains its green leaves and by these gathers from the 
air and digests a large part of its food. The mistletoe 
matures a pure white wax-like berry, about as large 
as a chick-pea, or big barley grain. It is an ever- 
green plant, and our Saxon and Celtic ancestors con- 
sidered it sacred to the gods and endued with mystic 
power. 

A true parasite is the dodder, a slim vine which 
climbs about small plants. It has clusters of little 
pink flowers, which look exactly like tiny morning- 
glories, or wild bind- weed blossoms. The stem is 
like a long pink thread, and here and there puts out 



Gbe pilgrims of tbe year 167 

rootlets, which work into the plant to which it 
clings, and drink its food stuff. The pink blossoms 
attract insects to the dodder's bells to carry pollen 
and fertilize its seeds. 

Long ago. no doubt, the dodder had green stem 
and leaves, and climbed, as does a morning-glory ; 
but as it by degrees took to living upon the work of 
other plants and ceased absorbing and digesting food 
for itself, the leaves ceased to develop and the chlo- 
rophyl no longer formed. 

We might take the dodder for the text of a little ser- 
mon about idle people who will not work and insist 
upon being supported by other and better folk, never 
caring if these are worn to death by the burden. 

The Indian pipes or beech-drops are all parasitic ; 
their ehlorophyl is gone, and their once green leaves 
have turned to little bleached scales. There is good 
Scripture for their being served that way. The one 
unused talent must be taken away and given to him 
who used five or ten talents well ! These pale idlers 
under the pine trees and beeches were once good, 
busy members of the wintergreen family. 

Broom-rape or " broom thief" is a parasitic plant, 
with a tall strong stem, scales, and tiny bloom, all a 
dull red-brown ; a " seedy "-looking plant-idler that 
has taken to loafing round for its plant neighbors to 
maintain. 



168 SSotans 

Of late much attention has been paid to the study 
of parasitic plants. The English call the invaded 
plant the host, and speak of a parasite with some re- 
spect in spite of its disreputable way of obtaining a 
living. The mistletoe has, in a manner, conferred 
dignity on parasites in the English idea, because the 
mistletoe was held sacred by the Druids. Naturally 
this mistletoe does not choose the oak, but the apple ; 
the Druids transplanted it to the oaks because the 
oaks were objects of worship and were tree temples. 
Mistletoes, as we have seen, are only partial para- 
sites, and other instances of partial parasitism have 
but lately come to notice in what are now called 
clandestine parasites ; these are plants whose tricky 
habit was hidden, and for long was unsuspected. 
Among these, the error of whose ways has been but 
recently discovered, are the toad-flax, wood betony, 
eyebright, and cow-wheat. Gerardias are parasitic 
upon roots of other plants, but have a well-developed 
leaf-surface gathering food from the air. One of the 
largest flowers in the world, sharing the palm of size 
with the great Victoria Regia lily, is a parasite found 
in the Island of Sumatra— the monstrous Rafflesia 
Arnoldi ; this is a direct parasite, has nothing like 
leaves, is merely a flower growing directly on the 
stem of a Cissus — a flower only, but what a flower ! 
It weighs nine pounds, and is of the circumference 



Gbe pilgrims f tbe l^eat 169 

of a cart-wheel ; its very appearance betrays its 
villainy. Its color is livid, its odor is that of carrion, 
and it steals the life of its unhappy host, offering 
neither beauty nor fragrance for the hospitality 
wrested from it. 

Saprophytes are parasites which live only upon 
decayed vegetable matter. Their host is not a living, 
but a decayed tree. Of these, the beech-drops, 
pine-sap, and cancer-root are examples. 



CHAPTER X 



BRINGING FORTH FRUIT 



October 

" It was autumn, and incessant 

Piped the quail from stocks and leaves, 
And, like living coals, the apples 

Burned among the withering leaves." 

October is the chief fruit month of the year. In 
the woods the walnuts, chestnuts, and acorns rattle 
to the ground in the frosty mornings. Along the 
roadside, hedges, and old fences the bitter-sweet opens 
its stiff red and orange cups, while hazel-nuts drop 
from their protecting cases. The corn stands in 
shocks up and down the fields, and heaps of the 
newly-husked ears glitter golden in the sun. 

The leaves have withered on squash and pumpkin 
vines, but the great bright globes of their fruit lie still 
ungathered. The last watermelons and citrons, 
their deep green streaked and mottled with white, 
are being carried to market. There are more ruddy 
apples than leaves on the trees, while the fruit stores 
are full of peaches, plums, grapes, and pears. 

170 



bringing Jfortb jfruit 171 

The machines are busy threshing out wheat, oats, 
rye, barley, clover, and buckwheat. Every weed and 
wayside bush is covered with ripe seed. Truly the 
earth has brought forth her fruits. 

What is fruit? Ask the dictionary, and the reply 
is, " The matured seed vessel, its contents, and such 
parts as are incorporated with them." Ask the child ; 
he answers, c: Something good to eat uncooked." 

Fruit is the matured seed ; all nuts, grains, peas, 
beans, the winged seeds of maple, ash, thistle, dan- 
delion, are fruit. Fruit-bearing is the life-object of 
the plant; the fruit contains the embryo of the plant 
to come, and assures the continuance of vegetation 
and of animal life. 

More narrowly, fruit is defined, as we generally un- 
derstand it, as " the pulpy mass connected with seeds 
of various plants and trees, especially such products 
as are pleasant to the taste and are eaten by men and 
animals." This is the popular idea of fruit, and we 
recognize oranges, lemons, pine-apples, peaches, 
cherries, and their kind as undoubted fruits. It re- 
quires some consideration to enable us to accept as 
fruit the slowly-floating dandelion seed with its little 
silken sail, or the sharp-hooked burrs of the stick- 
tight, or burdock, or stramonium. 

The word fruit is from the Latin fruor^ w ' \ enjoy." 
We cheerfully accord it to the beautiful and luscious, 



172 :JBotan£ 

denying it to the harmful and unsightly. Nature 
differs with us here, molding and maturing with the 
earnest care the fruits of her unbeautiful children, 
which we style weeds. Let us courageously follow 
both science and nature, looking at fruit in its widest 
sense. 

Fruits are divided into three classes : I. Fleshy ; 
as berries, pears, gourds, melons, grapes, apples. 
II. Stony (drupaceous) ; having a stone or pit, as 
peaches, plums, cherries. III. Dry ; as nuts, peas, 
beans, grains. 

Among the dry fruits we find that abundant nut, 
so singular in its manner of growth, joy of the Ameri- 
can boy's heart — the peanut. This low-growing vine- 
like plant bears small yellow blossoms, shaped like 
bean flowers. The calyx is very long, and the germ 
with the ovules lies at its bottom. The style of the 
pistil is also long. When the flower has dried and 
dropped away we see the ovary expanded to a pod 
with from one to three seeds in it ; this is borne on 
the tip of a flower-stalk, which at once begins to 
grow rapidly, bending toward the earth. This stalk 
bears the several pods of the flower cluster, and as if 
pressed to the earth by their weight, touches the 
ground and begins to push into it, burying the pods. 
When some few inches under the soil the pods 
harden, becoming woody, and the seeds mature. 



ffiringina Jfortb ffruit 173 

Each seed is composed of two thick cotyledons and 
a straight germ, lying in the fibrous shell. These 
oily, richly-flavored shell-protected cotyledons are 
the peanut of commerce. 

The size of seeds and seed-pods often attracts even 
the casual observer. How large are the pods which 
spring from the little blossom of the lima bean ! The 
small flower of the honey-locust expands from its tiny 
germ, growing the summer long into a great curled 
pod over an inch wide, and from seven to ten inches in 
length. How small is the dainty apple blossom ! That 
little green knob below the five partings of the calyx 
grows to the fragrant, juicy, richly-tinted apple often 
four or five inches in diameter. The cocoanut and 
the Brazil-nut are seeds of a notable size ; contrast 
with these the tiny seeds of poppies and the j)ortu- 
lacca seeds, which appear as a fine steel-colored 
dust. 

Many seeds which are small in themselves have 
very large cases. The pumpkin seed is a thin oval, 
at most three-fourths of an inch long and half an 
inch broad. From it sprouts a vine which may be 
some yards in lengtn, bearing several large pumpkins 
of from three to twenty-five or thirty pounds in 
weight. Some pumpkins are so large that they may 
be cut into chariots or slippers, in which ;i five- 
year-old child could be placed to play Cinderella's 



174 aSotana 

god-mother, or the " Old Woman Who Lived in a 
Shoe." 

A very remarkable compound fruit is the pine- 
apple. The flowers of the pine-apple are small, 
growing in a dense spike, guarded by prickly leaves, 
upon a short, thick stem. When the faded flowers 
drop off, the ovaries enlarge greatly, becoming soft 
and juicy, and growing together into one solid fruit, 
cased in the thick scales of the united ovary cases. 
The pine-apple seeds are inconspicuous, buried in 
the fragrant flesh of the ovaries. Thus one large 
fruit with many tiny seeds is produced from a num- 
ber of very small flowers. 

A pine-cone is a fruit similar to a pine-apple in its 
growth, and a young green pine-cone looks much like 
a young green pine-apple, except for its crown of 
green leaves. Both the pine-cone and the mulberry 
resemble the pine-apple in being multiple fruits — 
that is, many ovaries united to form one fruit. The 
pine-apple ripens into juicy richness, the pine-cone 
remains dry and woody, its hard-closed scales 
finally loosen and bend back, allowing the small 
seeds to drop out. 

Another curiously formed fruit is the fig. This 
is so common an article of commerce and food that 
we generally eat it with very little thought of the 
marvel of its growth. The fig stem expands at its 



bringing jfortb Jftutt 175 

axis or summit, and as its walls swell out the in- 
terior is left hollow. In this space a cluster of 
flowers develops and matures seeds, the flowers 
becoming a thick sweet pulp, in which the numerous 
very small seeds are contained. The expanded stem 
serves as a rind for the fruit thus formed, and itself 
becomes rich, sweet, and tender, the whole composing 
the luscious fruit. 

In strawberries, blackberries, and others, the 
minute seeds are held together by pulp forming a com- 
pound fruit. The minute yellow spots on the crim- 
son surface of the strawberry are the seeds borne on 
the modified receptacle, which, for purposes of seed 
distribution, has become highly colored, fragrant, and 
richly flavored. 

Seeds are of almost infinite variety in shape and 
color. Any seedsman's store will exhibit to us red, 
purple, yellow, white, black, gray, brown, pink, green, 
and gayly-mottled seeds. As for shapes they are 
round, oval, flat, discs, stars, horns, crescents, 
shuttle-shaped, spindle-shaped, full of Protean sur- 
prises in their change of form. All these shapes, 
colors, and flavors have a meaning in the matter of 
seed distribution. The seed having come to be, 
must secure its planting and germinating. 

Some aeeda have |m><1< which, when fully ripe, 
Bpring open with such sudden violence as to cast 



176 ;©otanE 

the seeds for several yards about the parent plant. 
The touch-me-not of the gardens is a good example 
of this, also the jewel-weed of the brooksides. 

Other seeds are provided with wings, as those of 
the maple, which grow in pairs so that there are two 
wings, or as the ash, where each seed, or key, has 
one wing or sail, so it can be borne as a shuttle-cock. 

Thistle, dandelion, milk-weed seeds are furnished 
with silken sails by which they are carried for long 
distances by even the lightest breezes. 

Seeds with hooks and burrs depend for transporta- 
tion upon animals, to which they cling, and having 
been carried about for some time, they are finally 
dropped where they can germinate, far from the 
parent plant. Sheep, cows, and horses in pasture 
may often be seen with hundreds of " weed-seeds " 
cleaving to their hairy coats. 

Certain seeds have stiff projections, sensitive to 
moisture and heat, by means of which, as by screws, 
they work their way into the earth. This singular 
power was in old times deemed a species of witch- 
craft. 

The number of seeds is as countless as the sands 
on the shore, the stars in the sky, or the drops in the 
sea. How many seeds mature in a single head of 
clover or panicle of grass ! How very many are the 
seeds of a single melon or pumpkin, or poppy head ! 



^Sttngina JFortb ffrutt 177 

Who thinks to count the seeds in a single head of 
dandelion or thistle ? What millions of seeds drop 
from pines, elms, oaks, maples ! 

The spores of the flowerless plants float off in 
clouds, millions of minute but life-full atoms. How 
seedy we consider lemons and oranges ; how very 
many are the seeds held in the abundant crops of 
berries and currants ! 

Were seeds not infinite in number the plant-world 
must perish, seeds being exposed to so many dis- 
asters. They are destroyed by over-much water, de- 
caying as they lie in or upon the ground. Exposed, 
as they frequently are, the tender germ is killed by 
freezing; hot suns burn and dry the life out of 
millions more. They are devoured by beasts and 
insects ; in many seasons almost the entire walnut 
crop is destroyed by worms, come from eggs depos- 
ited by an insect mother in the young and tender 
nuts in their early green state. For several consec- 
utive years insects will destroy the fruit crop. 

When the seed lias finally matured, been pre- 
served from such mischances, sprouted, sprung up, 
further accidents await it. Men and beasts may 
cnnli it by treading upon it; beasts eagerly graze 
Upon the new plantlets; storms and suns may prove 
as disastrous to the fresh growth as to tic seed. 
When 30 many seeds arc doomed to perish, a vast 
12 



178 JSotans 

number must be produced in order that enough shall 
survive to be mature seed and develop plants. 

The plant then secures its continuance by means 
of vast numbers of seeds. Advancing further in the 
scheme of vegetable preservation, in order to secure 
favorable localities for growth, the plant forms part- 
nerships for seed distribution, as it did for the fer- 
tilization of the ovules. 

Who are the chosen partners ? Not insects. In- 
sects are enemies of the seed, although allies of the 
flowers. The first partner chosen is the wind. The 
wind carries abroad all seeds provided with wings or 
sails, and small seeds light enough to be swept out 
of their scales, or open cases, b) T a brisk breeze, and 
be by it scattered abroad. 

Another partner is the waters. What thousands 
of cocoanuts and other tropical fruits, provided with 
waterproof cases, have been carried by the waves to 
clothe with verdure waiting islands. How are the 
tribes of "lilies and rushes and arrow-plant, and sedge, 
and a hundred others, distributed by the waters of 
streams. From island to island, from continent to 
continent, from stream to stream, lake and pond, go 
the water-carried fruits of the earth, with their bless- 
ings and their beauty. 

Animals are inveigled into partnerships by 
plants. Many seeds, notably those of red sorrel, 



bringing ffortb ffruft 179 

plantain, grasses, are conveyed from place to place 
by grazing beasts. The seed is contained in so hard 
a husk or case that it is not digested with the soft 
parts of the eaten plant, and is finally dropped in 
conditions promotive of rapid growth. 

Squirrels, field-mice, and other little rodents that 
have a habit of storing up winter food are fine seed 
planters. It has been estimated that, if let alone, 
squirrels would each year replant many acres of 
woodland, especially with such valuable trees as the 
cherry, oak, chestnut, walnut, beech. These squir- 
rels carry off and hide or accidentally drop thou- 
sands of nuts of which they forget the hiding- 
places. 

Of all the plants' partners the birds are the most 
helpful. For them the fruits put on their richest 
colors, and take their juicy sweetness, their perfume. 
Seeds, berries, all small fruits, as currants, goose- 
1 terries, cherries, bid for the aid of birds in seed 
scattering. The bird often swallows the whole fruit, 
as the thorn-apples and rose-haws. The pulp and 
flesh are quickly digested and the hungry bird is ever 
seeking for more. The seeds and pits are too thickly 
coated to digest, and are dropped as the birds flit 
from place to place. 

We notice tin.' hardness of the pits of peaches, 
plums, cherries; the firm, horny cases of Lemon, 



180 totalis 

« 
orange, apple, and pear seeds, assuring them against 
rapid decay. Of such fruits the bird partner desires 
only the soft, sweet, pulpy covering, and this he gets 
as his share in the seed-planting venture. 

Most of our choicest fruits and nuts owe their 
especial richness and size to the careful cultivation 
which produces valuable qualities from common, 
hard, acrid, wild varieties. 

Although October is the "month of fruits," there 
still linger flowers to grace the waning year. Not 
only are bold and hardy plants left to defy the first 
cold, rough autumn winds— one of the most delicate 
and beautiful Of our wild flowers crowns October 
days, lingering after its natal month of September, 
as if loath to leave the world to gloom. The poets 
love the gentian— some call it " blue/' some "purple;" 
whether because they are color-blind, or because the 
word chosen better fits their lines, who can tell? 
Thus Bryant says : 

" Blue, blue, as if the sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall." 

And another says : 

"There came a purple creature 
Which ravished all the hill." 

This lovely blossom, the fringed gentian, grows on 
a stem from one to two feet high, branching at the 



JBtingfnG ffortb jfruit 181 

top, each branch bearing a funnel-formed corolla of 
four fringed lobes. The calyx is also four cleft, and 
there are four stamens ; the pistil has two stigmas 
and one style, which is therefore a single style 
formed by the growing together of two, the 
stigmas not uniting. Now as the gentian blooms so 
late its seeds are very late ripening, and, falling into 
the ground, do not assent to a sleep so short as that 
they must waken early the next spring. On the 
contrary, as is the case with hollyhocks and some 
other plants, the seeds will not produce blossoms 
until the second year, and the plant is biennial. 
One peculiarity about the gentian is that it changes 
its haunts, seldom growing two or three generations 
of plants in the same locality. The hard, round 
seeds are wanderers ; they are easily washed away, 
and especially if they have ripened on a hillside, 
are likely to find their lodgment in a valley or 
meadow. 

All the gentians bloom late. The closed gentian is 
another blue flower which unfolds in September 
and lingers to grace October ; it receives its name, 
" closed gentian," from the shape of the corolla, which 
looks as if always in bud ; it is a large oblong corolla 
of a deep rich blue, the mouth (irmly shut, seeming 
to guard the inclosed stamens and pistil from the 
dampness and the chilly air of autumn nights. The 



182 totalis 

leaves of the closed gentian are much larger and 
coarser than the delicate opposite leaves of the fringed 
variety ; the flowers often develop in the axils of 
the leaves, seeming very cosy and well sheltered by 
the large clasping leaf bases ; flowers also develop in 
a close cluster at the summit of the stem, and there 
a number of leaves crowd about them. Both the 
closed and fringed gentians become of a much lighter 
color when growing in deep shade. 

All along our eastern sea-coast the five-flowered 
gentian graces the autumnal clays. This has smaller 
and paler flowers, and these appear to be always 
on the defensive, as every lobe of the corolla is armed 
with a sharp bristle. 

Two very delicate flowers appear in October, having 
sent out individuals to bloom in August and Sep- 
tember. The grass of Parnassus, tall and slender, 
with little round clasping leaves ; this is no grass at 
all, but so named from the lightness and grace of its 
stem. The small white or cream-colored flowers, 
with deep blue veins, look like memories of spring- 
time. 

Also, here is a little member of the great orchid 
family, a dainty flower which looks like a work of sil- 
ver filigree— the ladies-tresses. Some botanists claim 
that this is an inhabitant of low, swampy lands ; 
others assign the hillsides as its chosen home. The 



$ringtn0 jfortb jfruft 183 

fact is, this plant seems to be well suited with almost 
any place or month for blooming. From July to No- 
vember it may be found in dry woods and pastures, 
by dusty roadsides, along the hills, and down in the 
swamp edges. The stem is very remarkable ; it 
looks as if two stems had been closely twisted to- 
gether, like a little green rope of two strands. The 
leaves are long, linear lance-shape ; the lowest are 
the longest, and all are sheathing; the flowers are 
small, silvery white, closely crowded in the slender 
spike, and have the delicate fragrance of new-mown 
hay. In Xew England this little orchid is some- 
times called the " wild hyacinth," but though it is 
wild enough, refusing to abide in gardens, there is 
nothing of the hyacinth about it. This is the last 
orchid of the year, and also the smallest of our native 
orchids. The procession of the flowers almost began 
with our largest native orchid, the purple lady's- 
slipper. 

The bees seem to know that their time for honey- 
gathering is now very short, and they throng about 
these silvery ringent corollas. When the noonday 
sun shines warm, the soft, lazy air is full of the per- 
fume of the ladies-tresses, and everywhere echoes 
the hum of bees, we might be beguiled into the fancy 
that the year had. like the dial of Ahaz, turned again 
backward, and that instead of bearing down on snow 



184 ffiotang 

and ice we were re-borne on some tide of good fortune 
toward midsummer ! 

Some of the violets linger late or take a fresh season 
of blooming here in October; the cinquefoil also un- 
folds its twinkling stars, and the brave yarrow holds 
itself up in sturdy fashion as if defying fate. The 
asters have departed, except some late starveling 
specimens, but the dauntless hawks-weed spreads out 
just as brilliant gold as in the early spring. The 
hawks-weed is a well-loved companion of a year, 
and it and spring go journeying around the world 
together ! 

Near the coast the pink knot-weed smiles out, and 
we scarcely wonder that good, loving, poetic Thoreau 
thought them bright as a " peach orchard in full 
bloom." 

A flower not unlike in appearance to the closed 
gentian lingers into October clays — the great blue 
lobelia. The varieties of the lobelia are strangely 
unlike each other. In early summer we have the 
lobelia gracilis, a fairy of a flower, delicately blue 
with a white bar on its lower lip. The magnificent 
cardinal flower of wet lands, superbly beautiful, one 
of the most splendidly colored of all our wild flowers, 
seems too haughty and stately to claim kin with the 
shy, modest gracilis, or this strong, sturdy, farmer's 
boy of a great blue lobelia. This flower has a re- 



JSrinaing ffortb ffrutt 185 

markable arrangement of stamens and pistils; the 
pistil has a fringed stigma, and is fully inclosed 
by the stamens, as if they would force their pollen 
upon it. We find, however, that the sensitive or 
sticky surfaces of the stigma are pressed together so 
that no pollen can reach them, while the anthers on 
their part open only through a pore at the tips. 
This pore does not open until jarred by a visiting- 
bee, when a sudden snap casts the pollen over his 
coat ; the anthers being thus relieved of their burden 
lift themselves and the pistil seizes the opportunity to 
pass beyond them and be on the lookout for the 
next honey- seeker who comes along bearing pollen 
on his raiment. 

The fourth member of our lobelia family does not 
linger to greet the fruit-scented October air — the 
inflated or puffed lobelia dropped its small purple 
flowers long ago. The Indians used its coarse leaves 
for tobacco. The great blue lobelia has a sister- 
plant, exactly like itself, but with blossoms of pearly 
white ; there are some other varieties which prefer 
moist woods or brooksides. 

One of our most magnificent, composite flowers 
flourishes fn October — the "blazing star." This 
flower clings to the low hills near the coast : its 
Btems are tall, furrowed, narrow-leaved, and set for 
the upper half of their length with Large, red-purple 



186 3Botans 

flowers. The buds are a deep, fiery purple, and the 
plant is in its beauty when some of the lower blos- 
soms are expanded, and the whole portion above is 
set with these rich, shining buds. Unfortunately 
the expansion of bloom proceeds slowly toward the 
apex of the stem, and leaves behind it withered 
brown fringes that were " blazing stars," and then 
rough seeds, fruit for these October days. 

What is this we see in the hedge as we go 
homeward? A rose, a wild, pink rose! Every now 
and again these late-blooming roses, sweet and 
bright as in June, surprise us in our autumn walks. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SLEEP OF THE PLANTS 

November 

" They know the time to go ! 
The fairy clocks strike their inaudible hour, 
In field and woodland, and each punctual flower 
Bows at the signal an obedient head 
And hastes to bed." 

Even the youngest and least educated observers 
of flowers understand that they have fixed seasons 
of bloom and decay, of folding and opening. The 
child soon learns to look for chick-weed, dandelions, 
and butter-cups early in the spring, to expect roses 
and lilies in June, hollyhocks, asters, and petunias 
later; to associate dahlias, chrysanthemums, and 
golden-rod with autumn. 

Bands of school children seek in April the pastures 
and woodlands for wild hyacinths, violets, anemones, 
blood-root, and spring beauty. The least astute 
gardener prepares his crocus, hyacinth, tulip, and 
pansy beds for earliest bloom; The flowering almond, 
peonies, iris, columbine. • garden valerian, come 
promptly in the train of May: the yellow rose is the 
first of tht.' June band to unfold Its petal-. 

187 



188 JSotan^ 

With the return of mild weather, sun and moisture 
set at work the perennials ; the root-caps under 
ground send up stems and leaves. Most self-sown 
seeds germinate the spring after they ripen; some 
require two seasons to develop the embryo ; others 
will sprout, sending up plantlets within a few days 
or weeks after they are buried in the soil. One plant 
is much slower than another in the growth of stem 
and leaf, more tardy in unfolding blossoms ; all this 
assures the succession of the plants, the slow march 
past us of the beautiful hosts. When plants are 
crowded or hurried out of their natural time of 
bloom they seldom give as strong, lasting or fine 
flowers as when they are allowed to take their natural 
course. Flowers which constantly blossom in winter 
must rest in summer. Even those known as " per- 
petual bloomers" are by no means always in flower. 
Geraniums for winter flowering must be trimmed and 
shaded in summer to keep them from budding ; the 
oxalis and lilies that are destined for house plants, 
must have their profound rest in summer, being kept 
nearly dry and not permitted even to form leaves. 

In November the early bulbs are set in well-pre- 
pared beds and covered with straw or leaves. The 
gardener bestows upon his charges the attention that 
nature herself accords to her wild children. The 
hardy plants of forest, pond, and field remind one 



£be Sleep of tbe plants 189 

of strong children who bravely take care of them- 
selves while others of their age are still in their 
nurse's arms. 

The water lilies having finished their bloom draw 
down under the water, giving no sign of their exist- 
ence save a few faded dull-red pads idly flapping 
upon the surface of the pond as autumn winds pass 
by. The wood flowers, when their seed is matured, 
disappear entirely, not a stem or dead leaf is left to 
hint where star-flower, spring beauty, wild pansy, 
white-hearts, or Solomon's seal has been, or will 
again be. November counts almost no flowers under 
her cold gray-blue skies and upon her bare hills, 
unless, perhaps, a few hardy composite linger, such 
as a wild aster or weazened spray of golden-rod, or 
corymb of yarrow, or a despised little May-weed, 
making mock of its own name, gallantly flower- 
ing vigorously every w r eek from May until snow 
flies. 

As judicious mothers summon in their little ones, 
and tuck them safely into bed before night has fully 
fallen, so the loving mother nature folds away her 
flower children before the night of winter lias well 
begun. She covers their sleeping forms with such 
blankets of leaves as the robins brought to the 
" Babes in the Wood." We Bee no more of them 
abroad save a Eew disobedient stragglers, who already 



190 ffiotans 

look worn, hungry, and aweary from not following 
the good custom of the family. 

In this chilly month of November the roots are 
resting and sap has nearly ceased rising in the stems. 
Now is the time to trim vines, trees, and shrubs, 
when there shall be no plant strength wasted in 
leakage. Nature here sets us an example ; her sharp 
winds whistle through the forests and snap off twigs, 
branches, dead pods, sometimes remorselessly taking 
away great limbs. Pruned, bare, quiet, the vegetable 
world looks as if it were dead. It is merely asleep. 
Nature is the grand patroness of rest. 

" Blessed," said Sancho Panza, " be the man who 
first invented sleep!" If ever there were such a 
man, he was merely following in the wake of good 
mother nature, who not only decrees a daily sleep 
for all living things, but in the matter of her plant 
children a long seasonal rest as well. Even in the 
tropics the vegetable world arrests its activities, has 
its quiet time, although the name of that time is not 
winter. 

What is that daily rest which nature gives to the 
plant? The sleep of plants is a study full of in- 
terest. Among the plant motions, one is that of get- 
ting ready for slumber. Touch a sensitive plant. 
Wherever you touch it the plant seems to shrink, 
the leaflets fold up in pairs, and the stem of the leaf 



Zhe Sleep of tbe plants 191 

bends earthward. The leaf suddenly appears faded. 
Watch this same sensitive plant at sunset ; you will 
see it making the same motions, drooping and fold- 
ing, preparing thus for night, and so continuing 
until morning. 

Walk out on a spring evening. Where are the 
dandelions which, in the morning, made the grass 
like a " Field of the Cloth of Gold?" Search for 
them. They are hard to find on the green turf. 
The sepals of the wrapper have folded over the 
closed golden discs. What ! Every one faded so 
soon ? Xo ; only asleep, to open in renewed beauty 
when the day breaks and the shadows flee away. 

A field of clover presents a similar spectacle ; the 
leaflets hang back against the stalk as if dried by a 
hot gale. The sorrel and bean also drop back their 
leaves and assume the most wretchedly wilted ap- 
pearance. Never mind, the morning sun will call 
them back to vigorous life. Folding together, falling 
backward, lifting into a cluster, the leaves have a 
variety of ways of getting ready for sleep, just as 
some people sleep with their arms over or under 
their heads, laid by their sides, or folded over their 
chests. 

We are all accustomed to seeing the morning- 
glories close between nine and ten in the morning, 

while the four-o'clock docs not w;ike from sleep 



192 SotanE 

until late in the afternoon. The beauty of the night 
unfolds near sunset the cream-colored petals that 
guard its purple heart ; the water-lilies unclose 
at night, and shut their silver chalices by high 
noon. Children have nicknamed the chicory " Miss 
Go-to-becl-at-noon. " The evening primrose never 
opens until the sun is low ; it sleeps by day and 
wakens by night, loved of the moonlight, the whip- 
poorwill, the nightingale, and the moth. Tulips 
and marigolds will be found sound asleep by dark 
and do not waken until the sun is high. 

The sleep of flowers rests the organs of growth ; it 
serves also in the folding of leaf and blossom to 
protect the plant from chill and to shelter the 
stamens and pistils from the heavy dew. For some 
plants the day-closing shuts out insects which might 
injure them, and the night-waking calls night-flying 
insects to distribute the pollen. 

Cloudiness or coming rain also cause many flowers 
to close or to remain closed. Tulips remain fast 
shut on rainy mornings ; were the large petals wide 
open the flowers would be ruined. Marigolds, morn- 
ing-glories and many other flowers refuse to unfold 
unless the weather is fair. Plants are thus both 
clocks and barometers. 

The trunk of the tree bears in its rings the story 
of the years through which it has lived. The stalk 




GOOD NIGHT 



tlbe Sleep of tbe llMante 193 

of the sunflower writes in its twisted fibres the tale 
of sun-risings and settings which it has followed ; 
the flowers and leaves are chroniclers of the hours of 
the day and the hourly changes of the weather. 

The small scarlet pimpernel on the roadside at- 
tracts little attention ; put it under a microscope it 
becomes a thing of marvelous beauty; its small 
gray-green leaves seem to be powdered with frost; 
its scarlet petals are delicately veined ; the dark 
centre glows into a round of royal purple. This ex- 
quisite flower is one of the best of weather prophets. 
Hours away it knows of the coming of the rain, 
folds tight its petals so that scarcely a red tip shows, 
bends down its leaves, and thus exposing the least 
possible surface, waits for the approaching storm. 
The later any of these sleep-taking plants linger in 
the autumn the more wakeful they become. They 
are like children — made drowsy by the hot summer 
day, but alert and wide-eyed when the days are crisp 
and cool. 

Perhaps there is no flower more fascinating in its 
opening than the splendid moon-flower, a radiant 
creature of Flora's own, which might be described 
as the Sultan's daughter in the "Arabian Nights" 
— " round-faced and beautiful a- the full moon in the 
(seventh night." The moon-flower, from a bulb, 
sends up a most luxuriant vine, with Leaves resem- 
13 



194 , ffiotang 

bling those of the morning-glory, but larger, more 
glossy, and finer in texture. These clothe with a 
wall of verdure any trellis which may be set for the 
accommodation of the plant. All the summer day 
this deep rich green lies under the sun, as if rejoicing 
in its rays, and parting the leaves gently we may find 
great numbers of buds, each one a calyx holding a 
long tube, which expands or inflates at the top, with 
the fullness of the infolded salver-form margin 
white, a white tinged as if the shadow of a green 
leaf transfused with light had fallen upon it. At 
five o'clock, visit the moon-vine ; the buds are not 
now hidden ; they extend beyond the leaf shelter ; 
the tube has elongated ; the puff of dazzling white 
silk at the top is larger and clearer. Now watch 
them well. This is as if one stood by a cradle and 
watched the waking of a babe. The breast heaves 
with deep breaths ; the muscles quiver ; there is a 
slow rhythmic palpitation through all the resting 
form. So it is with the moon-flower. The bud 
trembles; it seems now no mere plant, but waking 
animal life. There is a quiver through all the folded 
involucre ; the long tube breathes, we see it expand- 
ing as in a sigh. Now that folded fullness at the 
top of the tube suddenly inflates ; in a flash a broad 
segment of snowy margin has expanded, like the 
opening of a hand ; one more deep sigh, again that 



XLhe Sleep ot tbe plants 195 

quiver through the bud, and that wide margin — ■ 
gleaming white as any new fallen snow — is fully un- 
furled ! Look along that wall of green. It is all 
astir ; discs of snow burst forth here and there by 
scores ; how marvelous, how human is this waken- 
ing of a flower ! Who wonders that Shakespeare — 
that flower and nature lover — sung about " winking 
May buds that ope their golden eyes !" 

Strange sleep of the plants, how full it is of mys- 
teries ! Sleep is called among mortals " the twin of 
death," but seems to be much more death's twin in 
the long waiting of many seeds ; life lingers in them 
passive for so many seasons ! Sometimes when 
locked in what is truly death, plants become again 
vivid in other manifestations. 

There was a lily bulb once placed in the hand of a 
Pharaoh as he went his long journey to Rhada- 
manthus. After centuries of burial it was given to 
one of these latest summers and became a flower. 
There was a root of lotus held by a royal red man in 
his grave; his skeleton fingers yielded it to the in- 
quisition of his white successor, and it broughtforth 
stem, leaf, and bloom. There was a handful of 
wheat wrapped up in the mummy cloths of an agricul- 
tural priest, long ago. Egypt delivered it to England, 
and it thrived into a harvest. Surely such return of 
life in the least, hints of resurrection for the greater, 



196 ffiotang 

Turn, on a November day, to the fire in the grate. 
The red flames wave and curl about great lumps of 
blackness that were ferns, mosses, cycads many ages 
past. Floods of mud have buried them, earth's 
inner fires have charred them, yet in many the 
leaf impression, or the stem structure, remained 
as the "broad arrow" of the plant-world stamp- 
ing ownership, and now and here these long dead 
children of the sun live again in light and heat. 

We have gone surely far afield on this chilly No- 
vember day ! We leave the fire in the grate and go 
out by wood and roadside. Color comes now across 
the landscape, not from squadrons of parti-colored 
bloom, but from great red spires of sumac rising in 
the waste corners of the bird and plant-beloved rail 
fences. Oh, wretched day when wire fences took 
their places ! The blackberry vines show brilliant 
strands and whips of red and purple, with clusters 
of dull red leaves clinging to them ; the rose hips 
glow red as sunlit carbuncles on the swaying vines, 
where bronze and green leaves still linger, and here 
in a corner is a dandelion peeping out, and one last 
lingering purple aster. • Yonder Jack-in-the-pulpit 
holds high a thick spike of glowing coral berries, and 
here is the last little Benjamin of the year— the low, 
velvet-tufted gray balls of the " life everlasting," 
with a faint aromatic odor which reminds one of 



Gbe Sleep ot tbe plants 197 

the attics, presses, ponderous bureaus, and huge 
cedar chests in stately ancient houses. Dr. Holmes 
said this aromatic odor reminded him of the great 
Pyramid and mummied Pharaohs, the asphodels of 
heaven and other of the things that cannot die. 

Great saucy bluejays and late-staying robins rest 
and preen on gray stone walls, in the chinks of which 
mosses and little ferns grow, and along which runs a 
wealth of red Virginia creeper. But what of color 
yet lingers on wood and pasture land, in clear blue 
skies and along the edges of the ponds that reflect 
them, cannot cheat us into a fancy that they will not 
soon all be locked in ice or buried in snow. Nature 
is making ready for her rest. We shall hear from 
her lips the old answer : 

" Trouble me not, for the door is now shut and my 
children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give 
thee." 



CHAPTER XII 

THE REIGN OF THE IMMORTALS 

December 

" The wind-flower and the violet they perished long ago, 
And the briar-rose and the orchis died, amid the summer 

glow ; 
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, 
And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty 

stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the 

plague on men, 
And the-brightness of their smile was gone from upland, 

glade, and glen." 

Winter and desolation are yoked together in our 
thoughts ; snow-buried earth and leafless trees, that 
is our mental picture of it. Observation, really see- 
ing what is, will greatly modify this opinion. Let 
us go out for a walk on a sunny day in late December. 
A bit of forest near the sea in southern New Jersey 
will be as good a place as any to study the winder 
beauties of the w r oods. 

Five or six inches of snow lie on the open fields ; 
in the forest the ground is less thickly covered. 
198 



XLhe IRdgn of tbe ffmmortale 199 

There are little tracks on the soft snow, left by small 
animals not yet gone to winter quarters, and perhaps 
we find a dead fly or bee or moth, a late lingerer 
overtaken by the cold. 

What has winter to show us ? 

First the lichens ; these flourish as in summer 
time; possibly the dearth of flowers makes their 
green, gray, and black, with the scarlet and yellow 
lighting them up here and there, seem even richer 
and more beautiful than at other times. Long-lived 
and irregular in the matter of their productive 
periods, all seasons are alike to them. 

The mosses are also as beautiful as ever ; brush 
the snow from the dark velvet-like cushions of green, 
covering decayed wood, or carpeting the spaces about 
the thick trees. Dark green, light green, under a 
microscope they show many variations in their little 
bright sessile leaves, closely packed along the main 
stems. Shooting up here and there we find slim 
brown or reddish stalklets witli a tiny cone-shaped 
object at the top. This is capped by something 
comically like an old-fashioned candle extinguisher. 
The wee urn is the spore case, full of green spore 
powder, which is kept from falling out too soon by 
that extinguisher-like lid. Also the spores are 
further protected and prevented from escaping in 
damp weather by a row of little teeth about the 



200 :JBotan£ 

urn's top. These teeth rise and allow spores to 
escape in dry weather only. The moss family is 
varied and numerous; in temperate zones usually 
only the smaller members appear. Some of these 
are almost too minute to be seen with unaided eyes. 

The beds of ground-pine are a depth of verdure ; 
we can gather long streamers of it for our Christmas 
wreaths. Ground-pine, which is not a pine at all, 
looks like fern, and is not a fern. What is it then? 
A club-moss, a lycopodium. Its vivid green in the 
winter woods will remain upon it for weeks after it 
is gathered, and then it will fade to a beautiful 
brown with tawny or dull golden edges. 

Most of the ferns have withered to the under- 
ground stems in this December weather. The winter 
fern, with its stiff serrated fronds, lifts stoutly above 
the snow; in some of the most sheltered places 
walking-fern, shield-fern, bracken, and lately-opened 
fronds of basket-fern, still linger. 

The checkerberry or wintergreen. and the par- 
tridge-berry, just as deeply green in its vines and as 
brilliantly red in its berries, but less aromatic in 
flavor, have met winter as courageously as the 
lichens. Bright green leaves, bright red berries, 
smile from under the white edges of the snow- 
blanket. 

We lift our eyes to the bare branches of the trees ; 



Gbe IRefgn of tbe ffmmortate 201 

we confront a mystery. We are so accustomed to 
this annual fall of the leaf that '■ use has dulled us 
to its strangeness." Let us think of this work of 
late autumn stripping the branches. We know 
something of " how " it is done, but " why " is it ? 
We are told it is a token of hard times on our earth. 
Once all the world was warm the year round, and 
all the woods were leaf-green year in and out. 

Now the immortals among the trees live chiefly 
in the tropics. The far north of the temperate zone 
has a few varieties of evergreens, and our winter 
woods have samples of these. When the age of ice 
and the ages of long winters north and south of the 
tropics came upon the world most of the trees as- 
sumed a habit of dropping their leaves and with- 
drawing from business in the cold season. These 
bare-of-leaf trees were the glory of summer; the 
evergreens, the tree immortals, are the glory of 
winter. 

Here in our winter woods that large shrub — tower- 
ing into a tree betimes — the holly, attracts attention ; 
its broad, darkly green, tfaorn-guarded leaves cannot 
hide the rich clusters of red berries. These sharp 
spines on the edges of the leaves are the hardened 
woody fibre extended beyond the green cellular fill- 
ing-in. 

These leaf-spines have queer talcs to tell us. They 



202 JBotans 

are only needed to protect the leaves from browsing 
animals ; the leaves will have and not have spines 
in various stages of growth. The holly, when young, 
has very many and stiff spines on the tender leaves, 
dangerously within reach of nipping teeth ; when 
well grown the leaves are far less armed. The ever- 
green oak, as a tree, has smooth leaves. If you keep 
it trimmed into a shrub it puts spines on its leaves. 
A famous botanist says : " Such observations throw 
us back on the unity of design in nature, leading us 
away from the earth to Him who is the end of 
problems and the font of certainties." 

Near the holly stands that beautiful evergreen, the 
juniper, abundant in hoary, blue berries. This is the 
darling of our winter woods, joy of the artist's eyes, 
good providence to the hungry birds. " Sweet is the 
juniper, but sharp his bough:" " Azure tinted 
juniper " — so sing the poets. 

Around the holly and the juniper stand the tree 
immortals — fir, pine, hemlock, cedar, spruce, balsam. 
They have not the gay gifts of the holly and juniper, 
but their brown cones, large and small, pointed or 
round, compact or loosely opened, have their own 
beauty. 

We noted that the spines on leaves were for de- 
fense, found chiefly low down, and abandoned as the 
tree grows. The evergreens have another protective 



Gbe IReicjn of tbe flmmortals 203 

method in their numerous sharp, finely-divided 
leaves, which we call needles. How are these pro- 
tective ? The tough, needle-like leaves and roughly 
scaled stems are uninviting to animals, but their 
chief value is as against snow. Early snow-storms, 
coming before the autumn leaves have fallen, weigh 
down the branches until they are broken, and often 
whole trees are destroyed. The evergreens of cold 
climates all have polished, much-divided leaves, and 
the snow passes between them, or falls readily from 
them, so that they are far less likely to be destroyed 
by storms than are trees with broader leaves. The 
evergreens of the tropics, on the other hand, usually 
have very broad leaves. There is a " reason why " 
in all things if we will but look it up. 

These trees about us in the winter woods have 
made preparations for winter, some retaining foliage 
and securing it from harm, others providing for its 
fall without injury to the tree. The trees that shed 
their leaves formed at the base of the leaf-stems 
certain empty thin-walled cells. When the activity 
of the pkmt perished these cells quickly decayed, 
allowing the leaves to drop off with a dear, dean 
cut, while the bud for next year remained uninjured 
above the scar. This empty cell provision is not 
made by the evergreens. 

As we saw in the pine, numerous leave-, bound to- 



204 JBotans 

gether firmly in bundles, are well secured to the tree, 
while the long needle-shape offers little resistance to 
the wind. This assures their long continuance on 
the tree. Do they, then, never come off ? Certainly. 
The pine leaves remain three or four years ; the 
spruce and fir five, or even seven ; the yew eight ; 
some others are even longer lived, and remain from 
sixteen to twenty years. They gradually dry and 
wither for a year or two before falling, and they do 
not all go in a single season. As some fall others 
develop ; there is continuous loss and replacement. 
Thus we find the ground under the evergreens always 
well-carpeted with their needles, while in undimmed 
glory the green immortals among trees seem to 
watch with wonder the fall of the autumn leaves 
around them. 

Walking among these immortals of the plant 
world while the first December snow falls lightly 
over them, we call to mind those "men that never 
die :" Charlemagne, sitting among his peers, waiting 
to return to universal empire ; King Arthur at rest 
in Avalon until the hour strikes for him to come 
again ; Genghis Khan lingers somewhere in the un- 
known yet to overrun Asia and Europe with his 
hordes. But these are fancies only, and facts are 
better. The immortals among trees give us facts of 
even greater interest than these dreamings. 



Zhe IRetgn of tbe Immortal* 205 

In Ceylon was a wonderful tree worshiped as a 
god, and called the Bo tree. It obtained from the 
natives divine honors because of its remarkable size, 
long life, and the fact that no other tree of its kind 
grew upon the island. This leads us to consider 
that the seed from which it sprung must have been 
bird-carried to Ceylon. Trees are thus found solitary, 
far from their kind, and owe their planting usually 
to birds, though sometimes on the coast their seeds 
were carried by the waters. The Bo tree was sup- 
posed to have been of full size and an object of 
worship for two thousand years. A great storm in 
October, 1887, overthrew it. The Ceylonese natives 
gathered up the fragments, cremated them, and 
buried the ashes with the pomp usually given to the 
remains of kings. 

In Africa there is a tree so tenacious of vitality that 
nothing can kill it but fire. Livingston gives an in- 
teresting account of it. Even the severed leaves take 
root after they have fallen upon the ground ; stakes 
cut and trimmed will sprout and grow into trees if 
set in the ground. This tree is also known on the 
[sland of Jamaica, and wherever it grows has a name 
of similar significance — the " Life Tree." 

The redwoods, or sequoia, of California, are the 
stateliest immortals of the Western tree-world. They 
are cone-bearing trees, related to the pines, and 



206 starts 

standing between the firs and cypresses. The Cali- 
fornia redwood, one of the two varieties of sequoia, 
grows to gigantic size ; a trunk is recorded two hun- 
dred and seventy feet high and fifteen feet in 
diameter, and even this enormous height and girth 
are said to have been surpassed. 

The redwood bark gives the tree its common 
name, being red, like the Scotch fir, deeply ridged 
and twisted, as is to be expected of the scarred and 
wrinkled veteran of so many ages. When the 
sequoias are young they are very graceful and beau- 
tiful, bearing their branches in a regular cone shape, 
the lower ones sweeping the ground ; the leaves are 
flat, linear, and very glossy, while from under the 
twigs hang the cones, nearly two inches long, bluish- 
green when young, and of a rich seal-brown in 
maturity. The catkins are on the tips of the twigs, 
appear in June, are round, and of a light-brown 
shade. 

The botanical name of this tree, sequoia semper- 
virens, refers to its perennial green. It flourishes 
best on the California coast-line. Long-lived and 
majestic as this tree is, its cousin, the other sequoia, 
known as the gigantea, surpasses it in size. This is 
a native of the mountains, growing on the slopes of 
the Sierra Nevada range. The gigantea is a social 
tree, seldom found solitary ; it is best shown in 



ftbe Kleign of tbe Ifmmortate 207 

groves, on a plateau about five thousand feet above 
sea-level. The needles or leaves are smaller than 
those of the sempervirens, and are more rigid ; the 
catkins are also small. Growing at so great a height 
snow-storms are no stranger to it, and the stiff, 
bristle-like form of the needles is best fitted to 
encounter the driving snows. The gigantea often 
attains a height of four hundred feet with a di- 
ameter of thirty. Sequoia-wood is strong and dura- 
ble, of a rich color, especially the heart-wood or 
middle of the trunk ; it is capable of receiving a 
rich, glossy polish, and thus is a favorite for cabinet 
work. One of these trees, called by the Indians 
" The Mother of the Forest," measured ninety feet 
in girth and was three hundred and twenty-one feet 
high. The bark was stripped off for a space of one 
hundred and sixteen feet to be shown at an exhibi- 
tion, and thus this stateliest tree of the American 
forests died. The growth of the redwoods is rapid 
for about twenty years; after that growth is more 
and more slow, and in age the increase is very tardy. 
Age also robs sequoias of their grace and beauty ; 
the lower branches fall away, and the foliage becomes 
dryer and more sparse. The life of a redwood tree 
is estimated at about three thousand years, if Left 
unharmed by men and foresl ihvs. 

These redwoods have rivals. Cowthorpe, in 



208 ;fi5otan£ 

England, boasts an oak tree fifteen hundred years old 
and seventy-eight feet in girth. Under its stately 
branches that philosophic and Christian gentleman, 
John Evelyn, used to muse on the follies of his 
times, and the singular aberrations of the later Stuart 
kings. South America also claims one of these im- 
mortal giants, a tree one hundred and twelve feet in 
girth, and said to be four thousand years old ; but 
trees are like centenarian people — when they pass 
the ordinary line of life, a few years may be reck- 
lessly added to their age, and no one can, with cer- 
tainty, offer contradiction ! Even such plants as are 
usually considered short-lived may, in especial in- 
stances, reach and pass their century — as grape, rose, 
ivy vines, and thorn-trees are known that have lived 
their two centuries ; but the thorn-rose and grape shed 
their leaves and look dead enough for several months 
in the year. Only the glorious evergreen plants deserve 
to be ranked in the cohorts of the immortals. 



THE END 



